"If I don't, you'll do the same idiotic trick again when I get you up—if I get you up."
Hastings looked quickly at him. This was the first time Charlton had ever expressed a doubt about his living. "Do you mean that?" he said hoarsely. "Or are you just trying to scare me?"
"Both," said Charlton. "I'll do my best, but I can't promise. I've lost confidence in you. No wonder doctors, after they've been in practice a few years, stop talking food and digestion to their patients. I've never been able to convince a single human being that appetite is not the sign of health, and yielding to it the way to health. But I've made lots of people angry and have lost their trade. I had hopes of you. You were such a hopeless wreck. But no. And you call yourself an intelligent man!"
"I'll never do it again," said Hastings, pleading, but smiling, too—Charlton's way of talking delighted him.
"You think this is a joke," said Charlton, shaking his bullet head. "Have you any affairs to settle? If you have, send for your lawyer in the morning."
Fear—the Great Fear—suddenly laid its icy long fingers upon the throat of the old man. He gasped and his eyes rolled. "Don't trifle with me, Charlton," he muttered. "You know you will pull me through."
"I'll do my best," said Charlton. "I promise nothing. I'm serious about the lawyer."
"I don't want no lawyer hanging round my bed," growled the old man. "It'd kill me. I've got nothing to settle. I don't run things with loose ends. And there's Jinny and Marthy and the boy—share and share alike."
"Well—you're in no immediate danger. I'll come early to-morrow."
"Wait till I get to sleep."