“Why, uncle, you have been sitting there listening!” cried Dean.
“To be sure I have. How could I help it, sir? I came in tired, and thought I would have a nap in my own chair till it was time to change for dinner, and you woke me up out of a pleasant dream which somehow shaped itself into climbing with an ice axe and nearly losing it. It was some time before I could make out whether I was really awake or dreaming still, and I lay listening and getting more and more interested in what the doctor described to you two stupid boys.”
“Oh, father, you shouldn’t have listened!” said Mark.
“What, sir!” cried Sir James Roche hotly. “And pray why shouldn’t I have listened?”
“Because—because—”
“Because—because! Well, go on, sir.”
“Well, Dr Robertson said something to us boys one day about what he called eavesdropping.”
“Tut, tut, sir!” cried the boy’s father irascibly. “You dare to tell me I was eavesdropping, when you three come in from your walk, and plump yourselves down at the end of the room and go on talking till you wake me up? How could I help being interested and sitting back listening to the doctor’s travels? Don’t I pay him to teach you boys a lot of his knowledge, and if by accident I hear some of what he says, haven’t I a right to it?”
“And you have heard all I have said, sir?” said the doctor, speaking as if he were moved.
“Yes, my dear sir, everything when once I was well awake, and very fine it was. Why, Mark—Dean—didn’t I suggest that I should like to hear some more?”