“Dr Bolter is going to smoke his cigar here, where I am about to send in the coffee,” said Miss Rosebury, very decidedly, and the Reverend Arthur directed an apologetic look at his old friend.
“Hah!” ejaculated the little doctor, taking out his case, and selecting a cigar, “that’s just the kind of social tyranny I like. A man, sir, is stronger than a woman in physical development, but weaker in the matter of making up his mind. I never am able to make up mine, and I am quite sure, Arthur, old fellow, that you are very weak in the matter of making up yours: thus, in steps the presiding genius of your house, and bids you do this, and you do it. Yes, Miss Rosebury, I am going to sit here and smoke and—”
“I am ready with a light, Dr Bolter,” said the little lady, standing close by with a box and a wax-match in her hands.
“No, no, really, my dear madam, I could not think of beginning while you are here.”
Scratch! went the match; there was a flash from the composition, and then Miss Rosebury’s plump taper little fingers held out the tiny wax-light, which was taken; there were a few puffs of bluish smoke, and Dr Bolter sank back in his chair, gazing at the door through which Miss Rosebury had passed.
“Hah!” he ejaculated. “I shall have to be off to-morrow.”
“Oh, nonsense!” cried the Reverend Arthur. “I thought you would come and stay a month.”
“Stay a month!” cried the doctor. “Why, my dear boy, what should I be fit for afterwards if I did?”
“Fit for, Harry?”
“Yes, fit for. I should be totally spoiled. I should become a complete domestic sybarite, and no more fit to go back to my tasks in the Malay jungle than to fly. No, Arthur, old fellow, it would never do.”