“Ah!” gasped Clement, fairly clutching his arm, “and what spared you?”
“Horner came down, and Sweetie Bob, that’s the errand-boy, and there was a bother about the money, for Bob wasn’t to leave anything without being paid, and while they were jawing about that, Merry laid hold of me and said, ‘Come and look for the aralia.’ They got to shouting and singing, and I don’t think they saw what was doing. They were nasty songs, and Merry touched me and said, ‘Let us go after the aralia.’ We got away without their missing us at first, but they ran after us when they found it out, and if you had not been there, Uncle Clem—”
“Thank God I was! Now, Adrian, first tell me, did you taste this stuff? You said you sucked it in.”
“Well, I did, a little. You know, uncle, one cannot always be made a baby. Women don’t understand, you know, and don’t know what a fool it makes a man to have them always after him, and have everything put out of his way like a precious infant, and people drinking it on the sly like Gerald, or—”
“Or me, eh, Adrian? I can tell you that I never tasted it for thirty years, and now only as a medicine. Lance, never.”
“But they did not treat you like a baby, and never let you see so much as a glass of beer.”
“Well, I am going to treat you like a man, but it is a sorrowful history that I have to tell you. You know that your mother and Aunt Wilmet are twin sisters?”
“Oh yes, though Aunt Wilmet is stout and jolly, and mother ever so much prettier and more delicate and nice.”
“Yes, from ill-health. She is never free from suffering.”
“I know. Old Dr. May said there was no help for it.”