This slight difference of opinion had not at all interfered with the attachment of the two; and few things would have roused Flint to such enthusiasm [Pg 44] as this expectation of a fortnight—a leisurely, gossiping, garrulous, quarrelsome fortnight—with his old friend. The prospect of the visit was a better tonic than any contained in the little doctor's black-box. Indeed it drove all thoughts of doctors and their medicines so completely out of his head that he was quite surprised when, having dressed and descended to the ground-floor, he saw Dr. Cricket standing at the foot of the stairs, wiping the perspiration off his forehead with a large silk handkerchief.
The Doctor looked fiercely at him from under his shaggy eyebrows.
"Is this Mr. Flint?" he asked, as if unable to believe the testimony of his eyes.
"It is," Flint answered with unconcern.
"Why did you get up?"
"Because I formed the habit in my youth."
"Didn't I tell you to lie in bed till I came?"
"I don't remember."
The Doctor quivered with rage.
"I am an old man, sir," he said, "and I've walked a mile in the heat of this devilish sun, and all for a patient who is determined to kill himself, and such a fool that it doesn't matter much whether he does or not."