"Good Lord, Peter! That dog is fifteen years old now! Argue yourself into miraculous longevity if you want to. But don't argue old Lad into it. Do you expect nothing will ever change in your home?"
"Perhaps," agreed Peter, with unshaken defiance. "But not before I live to see a new line of rosy-faced, fluffy-haired little Grimms."
McPherson leaned back with a sigh of discouragement. Then, with professional insight, he noted for the first time the gallant fight the old man opposite him was making to keep up that obstinate gay courage whose outward expression had so irritated the doctor. And, all at once, McPherson ceased to become the gruff friend and assumed the rôle that Ananias's physician probably acquired from his famous patient and which, most assuredly, he has handed down to all his medical successors.
"I see no reason, Peter," said he with judicial ponderousness, "why you shouldn't reach a ripe old age. You're quite likely to outlive me and a host of younger men. Only, take better care of yourself. And,—no matter how many probable years of life a man has before him, it does him no harm to set his house in order. Think over that part of my advice and forget the rest of it."
"Forget the rest of it," echoed Grimm absently. "The rest——"
McPherson hesitated; then as though overcome by a temptation too strong for him to battle against, he blurted out half-shamefacedly:
"Peter—don't laugh at me. I want to make a strange compact with you. As I've told you, you're quite likely to outlive me. But—will you agree that whichever of us happens to—to go first,—shall come back and—and let the other fellow know? Let the other fellow know; so as to settle the Great Question once and for all?"
Grimm stared at him for a moment. Then he set the room ringing with a laugh of whose mocking heartiness there could be no doubt.
"Oh, Andrew! Andrew!" he cried, when he could get his breath. "Still riding your one crazy hobby! And you so sane in other ways!"
"But you'll make the compact?" begged McPherson. "You're a man of your word,——"