“Pooh! nonsense!” cried Matt; “scores do—hundreds do—ninety either. Eighty? Pooh! nothing! youth, sir. Why, I’m past sixty, and see what a boy I look, eh? Why, I believe Miss Lucy would pick me out from scores to take care of her,—wouldn’t you, miss?”
Lucy looked up from her work, nodded and smiled.
“But now business,” said the old man.—“Where did you live, sir, before you went down in the country?”
“Finsbury,” said Septimus.
“And you were born there, eh?”
“I believe so,” said Septimus, wondering in his own mind whether it was worth all this trouble, perhaps to gain nothing.
“To be sure,” cried Matt; “and now we shall soon find it out. Brass plate on the door—‘Mr Phillips, Surgeon;’ big lamp sticking out, red bull’s-eye one side, green t’other, like railway signals; ‘danger’ and ‘all right’ to the people in the street.”
Old Matt rose to go, after appointing to meet Septimus on the following morning to take the first steps for obtaining the “documentary evidence” so necessary for their future plans.
“Ten to the moment, you’ll see me, sir,” said Matt. “Good afternoon, ma’am, and—Ah, Miss Lucy’s gone!”
But Septimus only sighed, and sat down once more to his weary copying, sheets of which he so often spoiled by letting his thoughts wander from the task in hand.