“Now then, go along with you; we don’t want your services here; we clear off our own snow, we do. Imprence! to knock, too, as if he was a gentleman!”
This was uttered by a servant-girl who had thrust her head out of a second-floor window to take an observation of the visitor before going down to open the door.
“Is he at home, Betsy dear?” inquired the gloomy man, looking up with a leer which proved that he could be the reverse of gloomy when he chose.
“Oh, it’s you, is it? I don’t think he wants to see you; indeed, I’m sure of it,” said the girl.
“Yes he does, dear; at all events I want to see him; and, Betsy, say it’s pressing business, and not beggin’.”
Betsy disappeared, and soon after, reappearing at the door, admitted the man, whom she ushered into a small apartment, which was redolent of tobacco, and in which sat a young man slippered and dressing-gowned, taking breakfast.
“How are you, doctor?” said the visitor, in a tone that did not accord with his soiled and ragged garments, as he laid down his hat and shovel, and flung himself into a chair.
“None the better for seeing you, Hooper,” replied the doctor sternly.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Ned, “what a world we live in, to be sure! It was ‘Hail fellow! well met,’ when I was well off; now,” (he scowled here) “my old familiars give me the cold shoulder because I’m poor.”
“You know that you are unjust,” said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, and speaking less sternly though not less firmly; “you know, Ned, that I have helped you with advice and with money to the utmost extent of my means, and you know that it was a long, long time before I ceased to call you one of my friends; but I do not choose to be annoyed by a man who has deliberately cast himself to the dogs, whose companions are the lowest wretches in London, and whose appearance is dirty and disgusting as well as disreputable.”