The very old man nodded. "Yes; I'll have to see—my son."
"Thank God!" said Dr. Lavendar.
"Dominie," said Mr. Wright, "it's better to make your manners when you've got your 'baccy.' Yes; I'll have to see—his father; if there's no other way of getting him out of town?"
"Of course there's no other way. Sam won't go without his father's consent. But you mustn't make play-writing the excuse; you mustn't talk about that."
"I won't talk about anything else," said Benjamin Wright.
Dr. Lavendar sighed, but he did not encourage perversity by arguing against it. "Benjamin," he said, "I will tell Samuel of your wish to see him—"
"My wish!"
Dr. Lavendar would not notice the interruption. "Will you appoint the time?"
"Oh, the sooner the better; get through with it! Get through with it!" He stared at his visitor and blinked rapidly; a moment later he shook all over. "Lavendar, it will kill me!" He was very frail, this shrunken old man in the green dressing-gown and high beaver hat, with his lower lip sucked in like a frightened child's. The torch of life, blown so often into furious flame by hurricanes of rage, had consumed itself, and it seemed now as if its flicker might be snuffed out by any slightest gust. "He may come up to-night," he mumbled, shivering in the hot sunshine and the drift of locust blossoms, as if he were cold.
"It can't be to-night; he's gone out West. He gets back Saturday. I'll send him up Sunday evening—if I can."