He waited, with the patience and the fatalism of infancy, for something to happen.
After an interval of time not mathematically to be computed, Tom heard a step on the stairs, and looked forth. A tall gentleman wearing a high hat and carrying a black bag was ascending. In a flash Tom recollected a talk with his dead father, in which that glorious and gay parent had explained to him that he, Tom, had been brought to his mother's room by the doctor in a black bag.
Tom pulled open the door at the head of the stairs, went outside, and drew the door to behind him.
'Are you the doctor?' he demanded, staring intently at the bag to see whether anything wriggled within.
'Yes, my man,' said the doctor. It was Quain Short, wrenched from the Alhambra.
'Well, they don't want another one. They've got one,' Tom asserted, still observing the bag.
'You're sure?'
'Yes. Aunt Annie said particularly that they didn't want another one.'
'Who is it that has come? Do you know his name? Christopher—is that it?'