“I! Why, I am going.”
“Going, but not gone,” said his friend.
“I must go! I tell you, Dick; I must have a place of my own to smoke my pipe in.”
“Is that all?” said Dr. May. “I think you might be accommodated here, unless you wished to be near your sister.”
“My sister is always resorting to watering-places. My nieces do nothing but play on the piano. No, I shall perhaps go off to America, the only place I have not seen yet, and I more than half engaged to go and help at Poonshedagore.”
“Better order your coffin then,” muttered Dr. May.
“I shall try lodgings in London, near the old hospital, perhaps—and go and turn over the British Museum library.”
“Look you here, Spencer, I have a much better plan. Do you know that scrap of a house of mine, by the back gate, just big enough for you and your pipe? Set up your staff there. Ethel will never get her school built without you.”
“Oh! that would be capital!” cried Ethel.
“It would be the best speculation for me. You would pay rent, and the last old woman never did,” continued Dr. May. “A garden the length of this one—”