He wouldn’t have liked it. When he went anywhere with his three ladies, Wanning always felt very well done by. He had no complaint to make about them, or about anything. That was why it seemed so unreasonable—He felt along his back incredulously with his hand. Harold, of course, was a trial; but among all his business friends, he knew scarcely one who had a promising boy.
The house was so still that Wanning could hear a faint, metallic tinkle from the butler’s pantry. Old Sam was washing up the silver, which he put away himself every night.
Wanning rose and walked aimlessly down the hall and out through the dining-room.
“Any Apollinaris on ice, Sam? I’m not feeling very well tonight.”
The old colored man dried his hands.
“Yessah, Mistah Wanning. Have a little rye with it, sah?”
“No, thank you, Sam. That’s one of the things I can’t do any more. I’ve been to see a big doctor in the city, and he tells me there’s something seriously wrong with me. My kidneys have sort of gone back on me.”
It was a satisfaction to Wanning to name the organ that had betrayed him, while all the rest of him was so sound.
Sam was immediately interested. He shook his grizzled head and looked full of wisdom.
“Don’t seem like a gen’leman of such a temperate life ought to have anything wrong thar, sah.”