“No,” he said, half aloud; “if there is a fire burning, and that is kept burning, all that we can do is to keep on smothering it for a time. It is sure to keep on eating its way out. He has a fire in his brain which he insists upon keeping burning, so until he quenches it himself, all I can do is to stop the flames by smothering it over by my medical sods. You must cure yourself, Norman Gartram; I cannot cure you. No, and you cannot cure yourself, for you will go on struggling to make more money that you have no use for, till you die. Poor devil!”
He said the last two words aloud, in a voice full of pitying contempt. Then, after another sip of his coffee, he looked round for a book, drew the lamp close to his right shoulder, and picked up one or two volumes, but only to throw them down again; and he was reaching over for another when his eye fell upon the cash belt with its bulging contents.
“Humph,” he ejaculated, as he turned it over and over, and noted that it had been in service a long time. “Stuffed very full. Notes, I suppose. Old boy hates banking. Wonder how much there is in? Very dishonourable,” he muttered; “extremely so, but he has placed himself in my hands.”
He drew out a pocket-book.
“Wants a new elastic band, my dear Gartram. Out of order. I must prescribe a new band. Let me see; what have we here? Notes—fivers—tens—two fifties. Droll thing that these flimsy looking scraps of paper should represent so much money. More here too—tens, all of them.”
He drew forth from the pockets of the book dirty doubled-up packets of Bank of England notes, and carelessly examined them, refolding them, and returning them to their places.
“What a capital fee I might pay myself,” he said, with an unpleasant little laugh; “and I don’t suppose, old fellow, that you would miss it. Certainly, my dear Gartram, you would be none the worse. Extremely one-sided sometimes,” he said, “to have had the education of a gentleman and run short. Yes, very.”
He returned the last notes to the pocket, and raised a little flap in the inner part.
“Humph! what’s this? An old love letter. No: man’s handwriting:—‘instructions to my executors.’”
He gave vent to a low whistle, glanced at the sleeping man, then at the door, and back at his patient before laying down the pocket-book, and turning the soiled little envelope over and over.