"Are you strong enough?" asked Jack, in duty bound, yet longing to get the talk into safe business channels.
"Strong enough?" repeated the old gentleman, in a dudgeon, "I'm really better than I was before the shake-up. I'm going home tomorrow, I'd have you to know, Jack."
"You would better not move too soon," said his nephew involuntarily.
Then he added hastily, "At least, take the doctor's advice."
"Hem—hem!" said his uncle again, with a shrewd smile, as he helped himself to a second bunch of grapes.
"Well, now, as to that matter you sent me over to London about," began
Jack, nervously plunging into business.
"Draw up that chair, and put your mind on the matter, and we'll go over it," interrupted old Mr. Loughead, discarding the grape-bunch suddenly, and assuming his commercial expression at once.
So Jack drew up his chair, as bidden; and presently the financial head of the Bradbury & Graeme Company, and the enterprising young member who was the principal part of "Company," were apparently lost to all else in the world, but their own concerns.
Meantime, Pickering Dodge was having a truly dreadful time of it.
The doctor, washing his hands of such a troublesome patient, had just run downstairs, jumped into his little old gig in displeasure, and was now half across a rut worn in the open meadow, dignified by the name of the "Short Road."
"Do go to bed," implored Ben, studying Pickering's pale face.