"If you had a wife I shouldn't be here."
"What! You! Why, that is the only ungallant thing I ever heard you say in all my life."
"I should envy you and be jealous of you."
"Then, my dear fellow, I am very glad we are by ourselves. I suppose your mother would not like to come up to nurse you?"
"She cannot move about now, except in her wheeled chair."
"Is there anyone you would wish to come to see you? This house you will, of course, consider as your own."
"Thank you, there is no one. I do not know anyone in the world, except my mother, so long as I know you. The only friend likely to call I saw to-day. There is no need for me to send for him to-day, is there?"
"Need, no. You will be much better when you have rested a while. You know cheerful company is always very useful to us doctors, and we like to have all the help we can. But I daresay we shall get on famously as we are." He would like to have heard all about the fire and the destruction of the clock, but he refrained from asking because he feared the excitement for his patient.
It happened that Dr. Shaw's solicitor lived near, and was at home, so that he came back with the boy before the room was ready. Shaw withdrew from the surgery, and for half-an-hour the lawyer and the clockmaker were alone. Then Leigh was carried upstairs and went to bed, and felt, as Shaw said he would, better and easier for lying down.
"I have no trouble on my mind now, Shaw, and my body cannot be a trouble to me or anybody else long. I never say thanks or make pretty speeches, but I am not ungrateful all the same. I don't think we have ever shaken hands yet, Shaw. Will you shake hands now?"