“We are not now speaking of Commodore Graham, I apprehend?” asked the doctor, slyly.
“No; I am simply putting a case,—a possible case, Doctors, I know, are not fond of these imagined emergencies; lawyers like them.”
“Doctors dislike them,” broke in Reede, “because they are never given to them in any completeness,—every important sign of pulse and tongue and temperature omitted—”
“Of course you are right,” said Maitland, crumpling up the telegram and the other papers; “and now for the Commodore. You are not apprehensive of anything serious, I hope?”
“It 's an anxious case, sir,—a very anxious case; he 's eighty-four.”
“Eighty-four!” repeated Maitland, to whom the words conveyed a considerable significance.
“Eighty-four!” repeated the other, once more. “No one would suspect it. Why, Sally Graham is the same age as my wife; they were at school together.”
Too polite to push a question which involved a double-shotted answer, Maitland merely said, “Indeed!” and, after a slight pause, added, “You said, I think, that the road to Dundalk led past Commodore Graham's cottage?”
“By the very gate.”
“May I offer you a seat with me? I am going that way. I have received news which calls me suddenly to England.”