This was too much for Alfred's patience. “I don't know who you are, sir,” said he; “I never exchanged but three words in my life with you; and do you suppose I will talk to a stranger on family matters of so delicate a kind as this? I begin to think you have intruded yourself on me simply to gratify an impertinent curiosity.”
“The hypothesis is at variance with my established character,” replied the oleaginous one. “Do me the justice to believe in the necessity of this investigation, and that it is one of a most friendly character.”
“Then I decline the double nuisance: your curiosity and your friendship! Take them both out of my room, sir, or I shall turn them both out by one pair of shoulders.”
“You shall smart for this,” said the doctor, driven to plain English by anger, that great solvent of circumlocution with which Nature has mercifully supplied us. He made to the door, opened it, and said in considerable excitement to some one outside, “Excited!—Very!”
Now Dr. Pleonast had no sooner been converted to the vernacular, and disappeared, than another stranger entered the room. He had evidently been lurking in the passage: it was a man of smallish stature, singularly gaunt, angular, and haggard, but dressed in a spruce suit of black, tight, new, and glossy. In short, he looked like Romeo's apothecary gone to Stultz with the money. He fluttered in with pale cheek and apprehensive body, saying hurriedly, “Now, my dear sir, be calm: pray be calm. I have come down all the way from London to see you, and I am sure you won't make me lose my journey; will you now?”
“And pray who asked you to come all the way from London, sir?”
“A person to whom your health is very dear.”
“Oh indeed; so I have secret friends, have I? Well, you may tell my secret, underhand, friends, I never was better in my life.”
“I am truly glad to hear it,” said the little man: “let me introduce myself, as Dr. Wycherley forgot to do it.” And he handed Alfred a card, on which his name and profession were written.
“Well, Mr. Speers,” said Alfred, “I have only a moment to give you, for I must dress for dinner. What do you want?”