“Seems precious dull without the little woman,” he muttered; “but I suppose I mustn’t grumble as she’s away to do good to others.”
He thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked up and down the room.
“Dear, dear me,” he said, impatiently; “a man, especially a doctor, can’t go on bemoaning people for ever. Where would science be if he did? Of course I’m very sorry about poor old Arthur, though after all perhaps he’ll turn up all right, with his vasculum full of new orchids. Here’s time galloping away, weeks and months and years, and I never get a bit nearer to the solution of my problem. Here am I, as I may say, right upon the very spot, and yet I do nothing whatever to prove that this is the place to which King Solomon sent to find his gold, and apes, and peacocks.”
Dr Bolter took off his sun-hat, and rubbed his bald head in a peculiarly vicious way, and then went on debating the question so as to work himself up to the carrying out of the project which he had in view.
“Here’s the case,” he said. “My wife’s out; there’s nobody ill, for I’ve polished off all that needs doing this morning, so when could there be a better chance? I’ll go, that I will.”
But there came up, as if to oppose him, the recollection of the morning after Mr Perowne’s party, and he was obliged to ask himself how could he go now?
“I don’t care,” he cried, angrily. “I have done all I could, and thought of all I could, and I can do no more. Here’s my wife out nearly always now, so that she would not miss me, so I ought to go. I might discover that this is the real site of Solomon’s gold mines, and if so—Phew, what a paper to read at the Royal Geographical!
“I’ll go! My mind’s made up. I’ll go, that I will,” he exclaimed; “and somehow I seem to fancy that this time I shall make my great discovery. Hah! yes; what a discovery! And that paper read before the Royal Society—a paper on the discovery of the Ancient Ophir, by Dr Bolter, F.R.S. Why, my name—our name I should say, for Mary’s sake—would be handed down to posterity.”
Here the doctor gave his head another rub, as if to get rid of a tiresome fly.
“I don’t know about posterity,” he muttered. “It wouldn’t matter to me, as I’ve no youngsters. Still it would be a fine discovery to make. But—”