"I don't know. I happened to want you, doctor, and so I found out that you were here."
"Want me? I am very glad to be wanted by you—so that it be not for you. What is it, my dear Linden?"
"No—you will not be glad," said Mr. Linden,—"though it is both for me and not for me. I want you to go with me to see one of my little scholars who is sick."
"Who is he?"
"One whom you have seen but will not remember,—Johnny Fax."
"Fax—" said the doctor—"I remember the name, but no particular owner of it. What's the matter with him?"
"I want you to come and see."
"Now?"—
"As near that as may be."
"Now it shall be, then; though with such a February night on one side, it takes all your power on the other to draw me out of this chair. You don't look much like Comedy, and I am very little like the great buskin-wearer—but I would as lieve Tragedy had me by the other shoulder as February, when his fingers have been so very long away from the fire. Did you ever read Thomson's 'Castle of Indolence,' Linden?"