A strange convulsion, half smile, half grin, passed over the old man's face, but he never uttered a word, but stood gazing steadily on the other.
“You are forgetting yourself, Tom,” said Stocmar, angrily. “That gentleman is not an acquaintance of yours.”
“And who told you that?” said the old man, insolently. “Ask himself if we are not.”
“I'm afraid I must give it against you, old boy,” said Paten, good-humoredly. “This is the first time I have had the honor to meet you.”
“It is not!” said the old man, with a solemn and even haughty emphasis.
“I could scarcely have forgotten a man of such impressive manners,” said Paten. “Will you kindly remind me of the where and how you imagine us to have met?”
“I will,” said the other, sternly. “You shall hear the where and the how. The where was in the High Court, at Jersey, on the 18th of January, in the year 18—; the how, was my being called on to prove the death, by corrosive sublimate, of Godfrey Hawke. Now, sir, what say you to my memory,—is it accurate, or not?”
Had not Paten caught hold of a heavy chair, he would have fallen; even as it was, he swayed forward and backward like a drunken man.
“And you—you were a doctor in those days, it seems,” said he, with an affected laugh, that made his ghastly features appear almost horrible.
“Yes; they accused me of curing folk, just as they charged you with killing them. Calumnious world that it is,—lets no man escape!”