"Dear, dearest sir, I would not have been so rude, but I could not bear to think you might be sitting up, and I came to see. I pray you, for God's sake, do go to bed!"
"Carl, very Carl, little Carl, great Carl!" he answered, with the utmost gentleness, but still unsmiling, "why should I go to bed? and why shouldest thou come out of thine?"
"Sir, if it is anything, I cannot sleep while you are not sleeping, and while you ought to be besides."
"Is that it? How very kind, how good! I do not wake wilfully, but if I am awake I must work,—thou knowest that. In truth, Carl, hadst thou not been so weary, I should have asked thee this very night what I must ask thee to-morrow morning."
"Ask me now, sir, for, if you remember, it is to-morrow morning already."
"Go get into your bed, then."
"No, sir, certainly not while you are sitting there."
A frown, like the shadow of a butterfly, floated over his forehead.
"If thou wilt have it so, I will even go to this naughty bed, but not to sleep. The fact is, Carl, I cannot sleep in London. I think that something in the air distresses my brain; it will not shut itself up. I was about to ask thee whether there is no country, nothing green, no pure wind, to be had within four miles?"
"Sir, you have hit upon a prodigious providence. There is, as I can assure you experimentally, fresh green, pure country air of Heaven's own distilling within that distance; and there is also much more,—there is something you would like even better."