“I must think about turning in,” said Matthew at last.
“I'll go and see if they've made things comfortable for you,” said Sylvester.
“But, bless you, man, I'm not billeting myself on you and turning your house upside down. I'm putting up at the Charing Cross Hotel.”
“You'd better stay here for two or three days and let me doctor you a bit,” said Sylvester.
But the old man pooh-pooh'd the idea. He did not want doctoring. He had had some worrying intricate business lately. These confounded landed proprietors,—they got their affairs into the most disastrous muddles, and when once they had put them into a lawyer's hands thought themselves relieved of all responsibilities and gaily went off to borrow more money. God may have made man in his own image, but he certainly forgot to supply the majority of the images with brains. However, he had set things straight by now and could take it easy for a bit. When he wanted Sylvester to doctor him, he would say so.
Against his will and better judgment, Sylvester had to let him go. He announced his intention of walking to Charing Cross, but Sylvester anticipated him by whistling up a hansom at the street door. Matthew protested. He had always walked home.
“Do something for my sake,—for a change,” said Sylvester, with a touch of humour.
The old man laughed, entered the cab, and drove off.
Sylvester went upstairs to finish his cigar. The world seemed a more ironical place than it had appeared some hours before. He felt certain aches in his fingers and sundry tinglings in his shins. He stooped and rubbed the latter with a meditative smile. There was another young woman between whom and her desires he was about to come. He speculated on the prospect of rubbing his shins after that encounter.
“I wonder how it is to be done,” he said, lying back in his chair.