“Then you must come back to-night, and I’m just as glad. It’s all nonsense your staying the night whenever you go up to see that doctor of yours.”
“He makes a great point of it, sir. He likes to try some fresh stuff on me, and then see what sort of night I have.”
“You could go up again to-morrow.”
“Of course I could, sir,” replied Pocket Upton, with a delicate emphasis on his penultimate. At the moment he was perhaps neither so acutely conscientious nor such an ass as his critics considered him.
“What else do you propose?” inquired Mr. Spearman.
“Well, sir, I have plenty of other friends in town, sir. Either the Knaggses or Miss Harbottle would put me up in a minute, sir.”
“Who are the Knaggses?”
“The boys were with me at Mr. Coverley’s, sir; they go to Westminster now. One of them stayed with us last holidays. They live in St. John’s Wood Park.”
“And the lady you mentioned?”
“Miss Harbottle, sir, an old friend of my mother’s; it was through her I went to Mr. Coverley’s, and I’ve often stayed there. She’s in the Wellington Road, sir, quite close to Lord’s.”