"Humph! Well, I for one, as a family man, must say," resumed Pyecroft, "that much as I respect our friend Denzil, and sincerely as I hope he'll soon be among us again as jovial as ever, I don't see my way to go and inquire personally after his health. My duty to my wife and children tells me that I ought to take the greatest possible care of my own health, for their sakes, if not for my own."
"Hear, hear! my sentiments exactly," resounded from three or four parts of the room. "Number Two is all very well when Number One has been properly cared for."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Scoop, the tailor, with a doleful shake of the head, "I am afraid that this is one of those unfortunate cases in which friendship finds itself with its hands tied. I don't really see that we can do anything. James, another go of Scotch with an extra squeeze of lemon this time."
Mr. Fildew rose to his feet and put his hat on.
"Surely your grace is not going already?" said Mr. Nutt.
"Why, the evening's quite a baby yet," remarked jovial-faced little Tubbins, the undertaker. "But perhaps there's a lady in the case, eh? Ah, sly dog, sly dog!" and he gave a comprehensive wink for the benefit of the company at large.
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Fildew, gravely, "I am going to the lodgings of Mr. Denzil. If any one here chooses to accompany me, so much the better. If not, I shall go alone."
He waited a moment, but no one spoke or moved.
Then he turned on his heel and walked slowly out.
He found Denzil in a raging fever, with no one to attend to him but a poor lad who slept in the next room. For ten days and as many nights he and this lad took it in turns to nurse the sick man, until the fever left him and he was on the high-road to recovery. Then an old aunt was telegraphed for out of Devonshire, and Mr. Fildew went his way. And that is the reason why ever afterwards he and Denzil shook hands when they met each other at the B. B.