“Of course I don’t for a moment doubt your ability. But don’t you,” his lordship candidly asked, “find it rather a bore?”
“I don’t practise much. I’m rather ashamed to say that.”
“Ah well, of course in your country it’s different. I daresay you’ve got a door-plate, eh?”
“Oh yes, and a tin sign tied to the balcony!” Jackson laughed.
Here the joke was beyond his friend, who but went on: “What on earth did your father say to it?”
“To my going into medicine? He said he’d be hanged if he’d take any of my doses. He didn’t think I should succeed; he wanted me to go into the house.”
“Into the House—a—?” Lord Canterville just wondered. “That would be into your Congress?”
“Ah no, not so bad as that. Into the store,” Jackson returned with that refinement of the ingenuous which he reserved for extreme cases.
His host stared, not venturing even for the moment to hazard an interpretation; and before a solution had presented itself Lady Canterville was on the scene.
“My dear, I thought we had better see you. Do you know he wants to marry our second girl?” It was in these simple and lucid terms that her husband acquainted her with the question.