"Say, I think you'd best be getting along and taking your shower, Mr. Carmody," said the voice of Doctor Twist, who had come up unobserved and was standing at his elbow.
The proprietor of Healthward Ho had a rather unpleasant voice, but never had it seemed so unpleasant to Mr. Carmody as it did at that moment. Parsimonious though he was, he would have given much for the privilege of heaving a brick at Doctor Twist. For at the very instant of this interruption he had conceived the Machiavellian idea of knocking the cigarette case out of Hugo's hand and grabbing what he could from the débris: and now this scheme must be abandoned.
With a snort which came from the very depths of an overwrought soul, Lester Carmody turned and shuffled off toward the house.
"Say, you shouldn't have done that," said Doctor Twist, waggling a reproachful head at Hugo. "No, sir, you shouldn't have done that. Not right to tantalize the poor fellow."
Hugo's mind seldom ran on parallel lines with that of his uncle, but it was animated now by the identical thought which only a short while back Mr. Carmody had so wistfully entertained. He, too, was feeling that what Doctor Twist needed was a brick thrown at him. When he was able to speak, however, he did not mention this, but kept the conversation on a pacific and businesslike note.
"I say," he said, "you couldn't lend me a tenner, could you?"
"I could not," agreed Doctor Twist.
In Hugo's mind the inscrutable problem of why an all-wise Creator should have inflicted a man like this on the world deepened.
"Well, I'll be pushing along, then," he said moodily.
"Going already?"