Somehow the more Dr Bolter tried to make up his mind to go, the more undecided he grew. He wanted to make an expedition into the interior very badly, but the hidden influence of that very decided little woman his wife was there still, making him feel guilty and like a child who tries to conceal some fault; and somehow, the more he tried to shake off the sensation, the worse he felt.—“There, it’s no use,” he cried at last, angrily. “No sooner does a man marry than farewell to independence. They say a man and his wife become one flesh, and really I think it’s a fact, for the man is completely absorbed and it’s all wife. The man becomes nobody at all.”
The doctor went into his own room, half museum, half surgery, and in a listless, pettish way he began to pull out drawer after drawer of specimens, some of which required examination badly, for the ants were beginning an attack, and this necessitated the introduction of a pungent acid which these busy little insects did not like.
“I might find gold in abundance,” said the doctor, as he busied himself over his specimens. “I might make such discoveries as would cause my name to be famous for ever, and here am I tied as it were by one unfortunate step to my wife’s apron. Hah! I was a great idiot to sacrifice my liberty.
“Not I,” he added, sharply. “Not I. She is a bit of a tyrant with me, and she’s as jealous as Othello, but she is an uncommonly nice little woman, and bless her, she thinks I’m about the cleverest fellow under the sun.
“Well, there’s not much to grumble at there,” he said, decidedly, as he smiled and settled his chin in his collar. “I don’t see that I need mind her being a bit jealous of me. It shows how fond she is, and she must be very proud of me if she thinks like that.”
This idea gave the little doctor so much satisfaction that for the moment he determined to go up to Perowne’s and ask his wife for leave of absence for a few days.
“N-no! It wouldn’t do,” he muttered, shaking his head dolefully. “She would not let me go. I shall have to make a bold dash for it if I do mean to have a run, and face the consequences afterwards.
“Look here, you know,” he cried gazing round at his specimens; “it’s about pitiful, that’s what it is, and I might just as well give up collecting altogether. Such an invitation from the Inche Maida as I had, to make her place my home, and start from there upon my investigations, only that stupid jealous idea on the part of my wife stopped it! Bah! It is intolerable.”
He thrust in a drawer in a most vicious manner; but Doctor Bolter’s annoyance with his wife came and went like an April shower. On re-opening the drawer he proceeded to arrange the specimens that his petulant fit had disturbed.
“I shall have to give it up,” he said, sadly. “So I may as well make the best of it, and—Hooray!”