“I can’t help it,” pleaded Hooper; “I can get no work.”
“I don’t wonder at that,” replied the doctor; every friend you ever had has got you work of one kind or another during the last few years, and you have drunk yourself out of it every time. Do you imagine that your friends will continue to care for a man who cares not for himself?
Ned did not reply, but hung his head in moody silence.
“Now,” continued the doctor, “my time is a little more valuable than yours; state what you have got to say, and then be off. Stay,” he added, in a softened tone, “have you breakfasted?”
“No,” answered Ned, with a hungry glance at the table.
“Well, then, as you did not come to beg, you may draw in your chair and go to work.”
Ned at once availed himself of this permission, and his spirits revived wonderfully as he progressed with the meal, during which he stated the cause of his visit.
“The fact is,” said he, “that I want your assistance, doctor—”
“I told you already,” interrupted the other, “that I have assisted you to the utmost extent of my means.”
“My good fellow, not so sharp, pray,” said Ned, helping himself to another roll, the first having vanished like a morning cloud; “I don’t want money—ah: that is to say, I do want money, but I don’t want yours. No; I came here to ask you to help me to get a body.”