“Mustn’t I speak of him,” Zo asked, “when I want him to tickle me?” Ovid beckoned to her father. “Take her away now,” he whispered—“and never let her see that man again.”
The warning was needless. The man’s destiny had decreed that he and Zo were never more to meet.
CHAPTER LXII.
Benjulia’s servants had but a dull time of it, poor souls, in the lonely house. Towards the end of December, they subscribed among themselves to buy one of those wonderful Christmas Numbers—presenting year after year the same large-eyed ladies, long-legged lovers, corpulent children, snow landscapes, and gluttonous merry-makings—which have become a national institution: say, the pictorial plum puddings of the English nation.
The servants had plenty of time to enjoy their genial newspaper, before the dining-room bell disturbed them.
For some weeks past, the master had again begun to spend the whole of his time in the mysterious laboratory. On the rare occasions when he returned to the house, he was always out of temper. If the servants knew nothing else, they knew what these signs meant—the great man was harder at work than ever; and in spite of his industry, he was not getting on so well as usual.
On this particular evening, the bell rang at the customary time—and the cook (successor to the unfortunate creature with pretensions to beauty and sentiment) hastened to get the dinner ready.
The footman turned to the dresser, and took from it a little heap of newspapers; carefully counting them before he ventured to carry them upstairs. This was Doctor Benjulia’s regular weekly supply of medical literature; and here, again, the mysterious man presented an incomprehensible problem to his fellow-creatures. He subscribed to every medical publication in England—and he never read one of them! The footman cut the leaves; and the master, with his forefinger to help him, ran his eye up and down the pages; apparently in search of some announcement that he never found—and, still more extraordinary, without showing the faintest sign of disappointment when he had done. Every week, he briskly shoved his unread periodicals into a huge basket, and sent them downstairs as waste paper.
The footman took up the newspapers and the dinner together—and was received with frowns and curses. He was abused for everything that he did in his own department, and for everything that the cook had done besides. “Whatever the master’s working at,” he announced, on returning to the kitchen, “he’s farther away from hitting the right nail on the head than ever. Upon my soul, I think I shall have to give warning! Let’s relieve our minds. Where’s the Christmas Number?”