"Well, if you will, you must, and I shall say no more about the matter except to caution you that Driver's lodge stands very near the lake, and I have seen a thick white mist rising scores of times in that part of the park. You are subject to rheumatism, and to my certain knowledge turned sixty; so I advise you to think how it will suit your bones to be running out to open and shut the gates at all hours, before you give Abel Driver his final answer."
Parker was not much pleased at these remarks, meant in all kindly warning; perhaps she did not like any allusion to her age: anyhow, she went away at once, and left me, rather shaken by the sudden news she had brought me, to ponder over the complications and inconveniences which result from indiscriminate matrimony, and to wonder what was to become of me without my worthy housekeeper.
The next day I sent for Hunter, and two days afterward I went to London and saw Sir Percival Pylle. There was not much agreeable sauvity in the great man's manner, and he listened to the account of my symptoms with an engaging smile; but when it became his turn to speak, the first word that fell from his lips was not a pretty one, nor pleasant for me to hear.
"Gout, my dear sir, nothing but gout," laughing lightly, as though the whole matter was as simple as possible. "Allow me to congratulate you. This will add ten years to your life. A very fashionable, indeed, I may say a very aristocratic, complaint it is just now."
Sir Percival's face broadened with a genial smile—mine lengthened. I have always had a constitutional, it may have been a prophetic, objection to gout, and now I was coolly told its clutches were already upon me.
"Really, sir," said I, "I cannot imagine what should lead you to say this. I am not aware of having any symptoms of this malady."
"Of course not, of course not. Why, if people knew what was the matter with them, and how to treat themselves, where would be the use of us doctors? We should soon become only an additional item, and a rather large one, in your poor-rates. But you limped a little, Mr. Slocombe, as you entered my room; may I ask why?"
"Bunions," I replied, with decision, "very bad bunions."
"But not always equally painful? Worse some days, and better others? Boots feel a good fit this week and unbearably tight the next? Bunion red, shiny, swollen and puffy to the touch?"
I bowed my head in assent.