"How are you, doctor?" said he, grasping the hand of the physician, and smiling with one of the smiles peculiar to his face when he felt that he had played off a capital joke on somebody.
"I'm well, Mr. Bunting. And how are you?" replied the doctor.
"First-rate—first-rate!" and Bunting rubbed his hands. Then he added, with almost irrepressible glee—
"You wasn't sharp enough, last April, doctor."
"Why so?" inquired Doctor Grimes.
"You didn't succeed in getting me to the city on a fool's errand."
"I don't understand you, Mr. Bunting," said the doctor seriously.
"Wilde & Lyon, Pearl Street—something to my advantage. Ha?"
The doctor looked puzzled.
"You needn't play the innocent, doctor. Its no use. I sent you on a fool's errand to New York; and it was but natural that you should seek to pay me back in my own coin. But I was too wide awake for you entirely. It takes a sharp man to catch me."