The doctor moved uneasily in his chair, glancing again and again round the room, while his brother continued to watch him with his keen unflinching eyes.
“Yes, I sent for you, Tom,—I sent for you,” continued Octavius; “but not to doctor me. I should be afraid of your not thoroughly understanding my constitution, Tom, and overdosing me. But look here, Tom,” chuckled the old man, leaving his seat and coughing drily, as, bent and failing, he crossed the room to a bureau and brought out a silver teaspoon and a bottle containing some dark liquid. “Look here, Tom,” he said, reseating himself, and then pouring with trembling hand a portion of the liquid into the spoon, and in the act spilling a few drops over the side. “There,” he said, smacking his lips after swallowing the fluid, and then stooping fumbling about in the fender for the stopper, that had slipped through his fingers.
“There, Tom, there; that’s nectar, Tom; that’s son, and daughter, and wife, and brother, and doctor, and friend, and everything but lawyer. That’s how I doctor myself, Tom; that’s how I doctor myself. ’Tain’t lawyer, Tom; but I can manage that myself and arrange about my few bits of things. You’d like my mourning-ring when I’m gone, wouldn’t you now, my dear brother?”
Doctor Hardon did not speak, but again shuffled in his chair, glancing uneasily at the sneering face before him; and as he thought of the goodly lands lying fallow, and the tenements in ruins, belonging to his brother, he recalled a case where he had been one of the certifiers respecting the sanity of an elderly lady; and then he wondered whether his brother had made a will, and what it specified.
“That’s how I doctor myself, Tom. That’s a cure for every kind of ache, Tom; try it. It’s good for runaway scoundrels of sons, and it’s good for runaway daughters, Tom, and runaway nieces, Tom. It’s good for everything, Tom; and I live on it,” chuckled the old man. “I didn’t want you for that, you see. You all left me; Septimus, and your jade of a girl, and you keep away; so I have it all to myself.”
“You are not going to take any more of that now?” said the doctor, as his brother once more drew the stopper from the bottle.
“No, no; not yet, not yet, Tom,” said the old man, placing the bottle on the chimney-piece. “Not yet, Tom, till after business. I wanted you about my will, Tom. D’ye hear? about my will.”
Doctor Hardon could not conceal the start he gave at hearing this last sentence; but he made an effort, and began to take snuff from a massive gold box.
“Ha, ha! I thought that would interest you, Tom,” chuckled the old man, watching his brother narrowly, and shading his keen eyes with his hand. “My will, Tom, my will, and what I shall do with my money; for I haven’t a soul belonging to me; not a soul, Tom. So you were coming to see me, Tom, were you, eh? Then you want money, don’t you? What have you been at, now? Mining-shares, eh? Just like one of your fool’s tricks.”
“Hadn’t you better refer to your solicitor?” said the doctor with assumed nonchalance, and not noticing the latter part of the speech.