“You would not have been satisfied without.”
“Ah, well,” said the young man, with a chuckle which resulted in his wiping his eyes with his highly scented handkerchief, “I never took a drop.”
“I know that too,” said the doctor.
“Ah, well; we understand one another now, and I’d better go.”
James Poynter, however, seemed to be in no hurry to go, but sipped his brandy-and-water, smoked his cigar down to the throwing-away length, and then brought out from his vest-pocket an amber and meerschaum mouthpiece, tipped with gold, into which he fitted the wet end of the cigar, and smoked till he could smoke no longer, when he rose, flush-faced, and with the dew upon his forehead.
“I suppose I must go and get it done, doctor,” he said; “but it’s rather a—well, it makes a man feel—I say, doctor, what is there in a pretty woman that makes a man feel half afraid of her, like?”
“I told you, Mr Poynter, a short time back, that I did not understand women,” said the doctor gravelly. “I cannot tell. Say Nature’s heaven-gift for her defence.”
“Humph!” said Poynter, staring. “I say, doctor—cigar, you know. Could you give a fellow a mouthful of something that would take the taste out of one’s mouth? Going to see a lady.”
“Try cold water,” said the doctor, in a tone of voice which sounded like throwing that fluid upon he young man’s hopes; but he had so much faith in himself that the verbal water glanced from his fine feathers, and after rinsing his mouth, he shook hands clumsily, intending to leave the doctor’s fee within his palm, but managed to drop the more valuable of the two coins on the edge of the fender, when it flew beneath the grate, and had to be fished out with the tongs.
“Dodgy stuff, money, doctor,” said Poynter, setting down the fire-iron, and blowing the coin.