“Cut and dried, eh, doctor?” said Chumbley. “Dried, of course, my dear fellow. I don’t know about the cut. I feel more and more convinced that here we have the true Ophir of Solomon; and it only wants a little enterprise, such as I am bringing to bear—”
“But you don’t mean to say,” cried Hilton, “that you are going off on another expedition of this sort, doctor?”
“Indeed but I do, sir!”
“And what does Mrs Doctor say?” asked Chumbley. “Does she approve?”
“Of course, my dear boy. Don’t you see that I am combining the journey with one in search of my brother-in-law?”
“Oh,” said Hilton, drily, “I see.
“Harley’s people are back without any news, and my little wife is distracted about it; vows she’ll go herself if I don’t find him. And then there’s that Mrs Barlow. I was up all night with her. Hysterical, and shrieking ‘Arthur!’ at intervals like minute-guns.”
“She has started a devoted attachment to the chaplain, hasn’t she?” asked Chumbley.
“Dreadful!” replied the doctor. “It makes me think that the poor fellow is best away, for she certainly means to marry him when he comes back. I say Chumbley, you’re a big fellow!”
“Granted, oh, wise man of the east.”