“Certainly!” said the doctor.
“Grayson, you amaze me! But if I prove to you that you are utterly wrong, and that the young dog is an arrant thief, what then?”
“Then,” said the doctor, “I’m afraid I should have to— No, I wouldn’t. I would try and reform him.”
“Well,” said Sir James, “if you choose to be so ultra lenient, Grayson, you must; but I feel that I have a duty to do, and as soon as we have had our wine I propose that we have the prisoners here, and listen to what they have to say.”
“Prisoners?”
“Yes. What else would you call them?”
Before the doctor could stand up afresh in Dexter’s defence a waiter entered the room.
“Beg pardon, sir, but your groom says would you be good enough to step upstairs?”
“Bless my heart!” cried the doctor. “Is it a relapse?”
He hurried up to the room where Dexter had been sleeping, to find that, instead of being in bed, he was fully dressed, and lying on the floor, with Peter the groom holding him down.