No doubt! “Divil doubt him!” as an Irishman would say. So is a cat glad to see a mouse in its paw. Something like these thoughts arose in the doctor’s mind; he smiled as affably as he could, and requested the visitor to be seated.
“Thanks!” replied he, and took the chair which the doctor moved up to the table for him. He placed his hat and gloves on the table. There was a brief pause, as might happen if any two friends sat down at their ease for a chat on matters and things in general. The visitor turned over a volume or two that lay on the table.
“The Devil,” he read from one of them; “His Origin, Greatness, and Decadence. By the Rev. A. Réville, D.D.”
“Ah!” he commented quietly. “A Frenchman, I observe. If it had been an Englishman, I should fancy he wrote the book for the sake of the rhyme in the title. Do you know, doctor, I fancy that incredulity of his will substitute one dash for the two periods in the reverend gentleman’s degree! I know no one greater condition of success in some lines of operation, than to have one’s existence thoroughly disbelieved in.”
The doctor forced himself to reply: “I hardly know how I came to have the book here. Yet he does make out a pretty strong case. I confess I would like to be certified that he is right. Suppose you allow yourself to be convinced?” And the poor fellow grinned: it couldn’t be called a smile.
“Why, really, I’ll look into it. I’ve considered the point though, not that I’m sure I could choose. And you know, as the late J. Milton very neatly observed, one would hardly like to lose one’s intellectual being, ‘though full of pain;’” and he smiled, not unkindly but sadly, and then resumed: “A Bible too. Very good edition. I remember seeing it stated that a professional person made it his business to find errors of the press in one of the Bible Society’s editions—this very one, I think; and the only one he could discover was a single ‘wrong font.’ Very accurate work—very!”
He had been turning over the leaves indifferently as he spoke, and laid the volume easily back. “Curious old superstition that,” he remarked, “that certain personages were made uncomfortable by this work!” And he gave the doctor a glance, as much as to ask, in the most delicate manner in the world, “Did you put that there to scare me with?”
I think the doctor blushed a little. He had not really expected, you know,—still, in case there should be any prophylactic influence—? No harm done, in any event; and that was precisely the observation made by the guest.
“No harm done, my dear fellow!” he said, in his calm, quiet, musical voice. No good, either, I imagine they both of them added to themselves.
There is an often repeated observation, that people under the pressure of an immeasurable misery or agony seem to take on a preternaturally sharp vision for minute details, such as spots in the carpet, and sprigs in the wall-paper, threads on a sleeve, and the like. Probably the doctor felt this influence. He had dallied a little, too, with the crisis; and so did his visitor—from different motives, no doubt; and, as he sat there, his eye fell on the card that had just been brought to him.