“Beautiful! Humph?” said Bones.
“My dear fellows,” said Stubbs, joining the two friends vowed to the destruction of the demon Jericho, “have you seen Dodo lately?”
“Saw him last night, didn’t we?” answered Thrush, with a wink, to Bones.
“I may speak to both of you confidentially,” observed Stubbs in trustful tone. “I believe we all have a regard for poor Dodo: an excellent fellow—will talk, that’s the worst. Has no stopper to his mouth; what rises from his heart will run out at his lips, that’s his misfortune, poor fellow! but—well, well,—we all have our faults. Now, I want to ask you”—and Stubbs, looking about him, lowered his voice—“I want to ask, have you observed anything odd about Dodo? Anything at all flighty?—you know what I mean.”
“Why, upon my word”—said Thrush, dragging out the syllables, and then pausing.
“He has a large family; I may say, a sweet family. An excellent wife, too. But, poor fellow! he has not had time to be rich, and I hope—yes, I do hope,” said Stubbs, emphatic, “that the brain’s all right.”
“What! Cracked?” cried Bones. “Does it ring as if cracked—humph?”
“This is in the closest confidence,” again urged Stubbs; “but I assure you that, for half-an-hour, Dodo would insist upon it that a man—it would be unjust, ungenerous, to mention his name, but a man of unbounded wealth and equal honour—had received a bullet through the left ventricle, you understand, of his heart; and that the man was still alive. And this,” Dodo said, “he had witnessed; had seen the sunset through the perforation. And still alive!”
Bones slowly rubbed his hands.
“Well?” said Thrush, coldly.