“Bless me! I am surprised. Been so busy. Poor boy! Snuff snuff snuff. Take a pinch? No, you said you didn’t. Bad habit. Bless my soul, how sad!”
Mr Burne, the family solicitor, jumped up when he blew his nose. Sat down to take some more snuff, and got up again to offer a pinch to the doctor.
“Really, Mr Burne, there is only one thing that I can suggest—”
“And that’s what Mrs Dunn here told me.”
There was a most extraordinary performance upon the nose, which made Mrs Dunn raise her hands, and then bring them down heavily in her lap, and exclaim:
“Bless me, man, don’t do that!”
“Ah, Mrs Dunn,” cried the lawyer; “what have you been about? Nothing to do but attend upon your young master, and you’ve got him into a state like this.”
“Well of all—”
“Tut tut! hold your tongue, Mrs Dunn, what’s gone by can’t be recalled. I’ve been very busy lately fighting a cousin of the poor boy, who was trying to get his money.”
“And what’s the good of his money, sir, if he isn’t going to live?”