Hubbard did not rise. He did not even offer to shake hands. He half closed his eyes and murmured in a tired voice: "The bad penny is back again, and uglier than ever."
I crossed the room and threw open a window. Then I marched into his bedroom, seized a water jug, returned and put out the fire.
"You've been coddling yourself too long," I remarked. "Get up and put on your hat. It's almost one. You are going to lunch with me at Verrey's."
"I have a stiff leg," he remonstrated.
"Fancy! Mere fancy," I returned.
The room was full of steam and smoke. Hubbard said a wicked thing and got afoot, coughing. I found his hat, crammed it on his skull and crooked my arm in his. He declined to budge and wagged a blistering tongue, but I laughed and, picking him up, I carried him bodily downstairs to a cab. He called me forty sorts of cowardly bully in his gentle sweetly courteous tones, but before two blocks were passed his ill-humour had evaporated. He remembered he had news to give me. We had not met for eighteen months. Of a sudden he stopped beshrewing me and leaned back in the cushions. I knew his ways and talked about the weather. He endured it until we were seated within the grill-room. Then he begged me very civilly to let God manage His own affairs.
"I am very willing," I said.
He impaled an oyster on a fork and sniffed at it with brutal indifference to the waiter's feelings. Satisfied it was a good oyster, he swallowed it.
"I am no longer a bachelor," said he. "I have taken unto myself a wife."
"The deuce!" I cried.