"I have," Somers insisted. "I'm in a nasty mood to-night."
"I wish you'd let me take Nellie Mason," Woodroffe put in.
"I can't. I promised her, five months ago. Never mind that. We're talking about you. And I want you to go. Yes; I mean it. You ought to go. I'm a short-sighted old fool; much too wrapped up in myself and my own affairs; but now that I've heard the case stated I can see the truth. You'd only stultify and repress yourself by staying here. I know how loyal you are, and I know that at a word from me you'd go on. You mustn't. You'd do harm to yourself and to the practice by denying your impulse. As you reminded me, that's a well-established principle of mine, though I haven't thought much about it for the last five years—there's been too much to do. The point is, however, that you'll do no good to yourself or any one while you're working against the grain. Fay ce que voudra. It's possible that you may come a tremendous cropper, and that might do you all the good in the world. But go you must. I wouldn't keep you now if you wanted to stay."
Woodroffe had stopped fidgeting. "But look here, Bob, old man," he said. "As a matter of fact, I can't go yet, not for a month or two."
"You can go to-morrow if you want to," Somers replied. "Bates wants a job and he'd be glad to come."
"Oh! Lord! Bates!" interjected Woodroffe.
"Yes, ohlordbates!" Somers corroborated him. "Dear old wooden-headed, persistent, patient, uninspired Bates. He's just the man I want. The panel patients'll love him, because he'll take so much trouble over 'em. It's true that he'll have to work eighteen hours a day to get through, but he likes that sort of thing. Makes him feel as if he were being some use in the world, poor chap. Oh! yes, I can do with Bates, but God! I'll miss you, Arthur."
"I'm damned if I'll go," Woodroffe announced, getting up. "Everlastingly damned if I will."
"You will, my son, because I won't keep you," Somers said. "But I don't say that I won't ever have you back. That depends, of course, on how you return to me. If you want to come back in two, or three, or five years' time; just turn up and say, 'Bob, I think I'd like to take up the old work again! and we'll go into partnership.' You'll be ripe for it. Now you've got to go and find out what you are fit for. You're not just now fit for this job or you wouldn't be feeling as you do about it. I know you'd stay out of friendship for me, but that's no good—no good at all. I'd sooner have ohlordbates trying to be some use in the world."