Pod Piper was a frequent visitor in his master's sickroom. Whenever Mr. Kelvin felt himself a little better, he would send for Pod and dictate sundry instructions, chiefly replies to some of his many correspondents, which that young gentleman would take down in shorthand, to be copied out afterwards in the office downstairs. Of course, there were times when it was requisite that Mr. Bray, the head-clerk, should see his employer in person; but as he happened to be slightly afflicted with deafness, the labour of talking to him was sometimes too much for Mr. Kelvin, so he dispensed as much as possible with the necessity of seeing him. To Olive Deane it seemed far better that if any one must see her cousin frequently on matters of business, that person should be a simple country lad, the chief occupation of whose mind probably was to wonder what he should have for dinner, rather than that quietly observant Mr. Bray, who seemed to see so much and to say so little. So to Pod she was always coldly gracious, and when he had finished with Mr. Kelvin upstairs, he generally found a piece of bread and jam, or a slice of cake, or an orange, on the hall table, put there for him by Olive herself Whatever the article might be, it made no difference to Pod: he treated them all with the strict impartiality of a hungry lad: but his private opinion with regard to Miss Deane was not modified one iota thereby. He could not forget the scene between her and Mr. Pomeroy; he could not forget the base plot of which he had overheard the details, and of which his favourite, Miss Lloyd, was to be the victim.
"She's a snake in the grass, if ever there was one," Pod would often remark confidentially to himself, even while in the very act of munching the bread and jam which Miss Deane had prepared for him.
"Doesn't the governor seem to have got fond of her all of a sudden!" remarked Pod, parenthetically to himself, one day, as he was marching slowly downstairs from the sick man's room. "Nobody else must wait upon him, or even be near him. It's disgusting!"
There was a splendid orange waiting for him on the hall table this morning. He took it with him to his den to enjoy in secret; but all the time he was sucking the orange, his thoughts were with his master and Miss Deane. "How close she sticks to him! Seems as if she couldn't bear even the old lady to go near him. What a funny thing it is he don't get better! I don't believe Dr. Druce, who's no better than an old woman, knows a bit what's the matter with him. I've seen him two or three times when he's had one of his bad attacks on him, and I'm blessed if I don't have a jaw with Dr. Whitaker about it. He's something like a doctor."
The Dr. Whitaker alluded to by Pod was a young practitioner who had been settled in Pembridge some five or six years. Some professional difference of opinion had arisen between him and Dr. Druce over a case to which they had both been called in, and the older man no longer recognized the younger when they passed each other in the street, or even spoke of him otherwise than in a tone of polite contempt: all of which in no wise troubled Dr. Whitaker, who plodded his way through life with a kind word and a pleasant smile for everybody--even including old Dr. Druce.
Kelvin and he had met several times at the houses of mutual friends, and had learned to know and like each other: and when the former was taken ill, Dr. Whitaker was the man he would have liked to attend him; but he knew that to have breathed such a wish to his mother would almost have broken her heart, so firmly did she pin her faith to Dr. Druce.
If there was one thing that easy-going Dr. Whitaker detested more than another, it was having to make out his own bills. In order to obviate this disagreeable necessity, he had taken of late to employing Pod Piper as his secretary. Pod wrote a capital hand for a youngster, and was only too well pleased to be able to earn a few shillings now and again by working after office-hours. Everybody in Pembridge knew of Mr. Kelvin's illness by this time, and Dr. Whitaker seldom saw Pod without inquiring after him. Thus it was that Pod saw his way to bring under the notice of Dr. Whitaker easily, and as if in the course of ordinary conversation, that which he was growing anxious to tell him.
Accordingly, the next time Dr. Whitaker put his usual query, "How has the governor been to day?" Pod was prepared to go more into detail than he had ever done before.
"Much the same as usual, sir, thank you," he answered. "But if I may make so bold as to say so, my opinion is that Dr. Druce is no better than an old woman. It's the liver, he says---nothing but the liver. If that's all that's the matter, why don't he cure it? Now, if master would only send for you, sir, I'm sure you would soon put him all right again."
"Piper," said Dr. Whitaker, as he leisurely proceeded to light a cigar, "Dr. Druce is one of the antiquities of Pembridge, and antiquities should always be respected. Oblige me by getting on with your work."