“What will you do, Bathurst?” the Doctor asked his guest, after the party from the Major's had been chatting for some little time downstairs. “Would you like to cut in at a rubber or take a ball at pool?”
“Neither, Doctor; they are both accomplishments beyond me; I have not patience for whist, and I can't play billiards in the least. I have tried over and over again, but I am too nervous, I fancy; I break down over the easiest stroke—in fact, an easy stroke is harder for me than a difficult one. I know I ought to make it, and just for that reason, I suppose, I don't.”
“You don't give one the idea of a nervous man, either, Bathurst.”
“Well, I am, Doctor, constitutionally, indeed terribly so.”
“Not in business matters, anyhow,” the Doctor said, with a smile. “You have the reputation of not minding in the slightest what responsibility you take upon yourself, and of carrying out what you undertake in the most resolute, I won't say high handed, manner.”
“No, it doesn't come in there,” Bathurst laughed. “Morally I am not nervous so far as I know, physically I am. I would give a great deal if I could get over it, but, as I have said, it is constitutional.”
“Not on your father's side, Bathurst. I knew him well, and he was a very gallant officer.”
“No, it was the other side,” Bathurst said; “I will tell you about it some day.”
At this moment another friend of Bathurst's came up and entered into conversation with him.
“Well, I will go upstairs to the billiard room,” the Doctor said; “and you will find me there, Bathurst, whenever you feel disposed to go.”