"Am I really looking better, Jeremiah?" asked Miser Farebrother, eager to seize the slenderest hope. "Really better?"
"Indeed you are, sir. Be careful, and in a short time you'll be quite your old self again."
"Never that; never that, I'm afraid," groaned Miser Farebrother. "It has gone too far—too far!"
"Not at all, sir," said Jeremiah, with lugubrious cheerfulness. "You are frightening yourself unnecessarily. We all do when the least thing ails us. If my little finger aches, I think I am going to die."
"It is hard, it is wicked, that a man should have to die. I have read of an elixir a few drops of which would make an old man young. If I only knew where it was to be obtained—where it was to be bought!"
"I wish I knew where, sir," said Jeremiah. "I would get you a bottle."
"And one for yourself, eh, Jeremiah?"
"Yes, sir! I shouldn't object. The idea of death isn't pleasant."
"Then don't let us think of it," said the miser, with a doleful shake of his head; and then, more briskly, "at all events, while I live I will do what I have set my mind to. I may live fifty years yet. There's old Parr: why shouldn't I be such another? Those people down-stairs, who are waiting and longing for me to go—it would drive them to frenzy if they thought there was any chance of my out-living them."
"Miss Phœbe's friends, sir?"