On the other side of the dining-room door Doctor Morris, a thoughtful-looking man of goodly presence, and the better looking for a calm ignorance of his being handsome, was seated opposite to his thin, yellow-skinned, and rather withered, nervous-looking old college friend, both partaking slowly of the good things the doctor’s domestic had prepared for them, as if it came perfectly natural to them to follow out the proverbial words of the old Greek philosopher who bade his pupils, “Live not to eat, but eat to live.”
As Sam had truthfully said, they had been talking very learnedly about their investigations in the particular branches of science which they had followed up since their old school and college days when they had begun their friendship, in company with another companion, missing now; and the doctor had said, with a far-off look in his large dark eyes—
“No, Fred, old chap, I don’t want to settle down here yet, because I know how it will be. Once I regularly begin, the practice will completely swallow me, as it did the dear old dad. People came from far and wide to be treated by him, and he had hardly an hour to call his own. Of course I shall be glad to do the same, for it’s a duty to one’s fellow-creatures; but I want to leave it all to old Stanley for another two or three years while I travel and see more of the world. I should like to go with some army if I could.”
“Yes,” said his guest, “I see; as a volunteer surgeon.”
“Exactly; the experience and confidence I should gain would be so great. After that, here is my place, and I could relieve Stanley till he retires, which he says he shall do as soon as I like to take the old practice fully in hand.”
“Hah! Yes, Bob,” said the visitor. “There’s nothing like travel—seeing foreign countries, with some special pursuit to follow. I’m like a fish out of water now, with all this trouble in Egypt. Oh, hang the Khalifa, or Mahdi, or whatever they call him!”
“That’s what a good many people would like to do,” said the doctor drily.
“Like to? I should like to do it myself,” cried Landon, with his yellow face flushing. “The wretch, the impostor, the cruel, heartless brute! Poor Harry Frere! as handsome, manly, true-hearted a gentleman as ever breathed.”
“Hah, yes!” said the doctor, sighing. “Don’t talk about it, old fellow. It makes me miserable every night as it is.”
“Miserable? Yes, for if ever friend was like a brother poor old Harry was. He had only one fault in him, and that was his blind faith and belief in poor Gordon.”