He gave up trying to make conversation; instead, he watched the clock.
Mary had said that David must go to bed at eight, and as the clock
began to strike, Dr. Lavendar, with some eagerness, opened his lips to
say good night--and closed them. "Guess he'd rather run his own rig,"
he thought. But to his relief, at the last stroke David got up.
"It's my bedtime, sir."
"So it is! Well, it will be mine after a while. Good night, my boy!"
Dr. Lavendar blinked nervously. Young persons were generally kissed.
"I should not wish to be kissed," he said to himself, and the two
shook hands gravely.
Left alone, he felt so fatigued he had to have that other pipe. Before
he had finished it his senior warden looked in at the study door.
"Come in, Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar. "Samuel, I feel as if I had
driven ten miles on a corduroy road!"
Mr. Wright looked blank; sometimes he found it hard to follow Dr.
Lavendar.
"Sam, young persons are very exciting."
"Some of them are, I can vouch for that," his caller assured him
grimly.
"Come, come! They are good for us," said Dr. Lavendar. "I wish you'd
take a pipe, Sam; it would cheer you up."
"I never smoke, sir," said Samuel reprovingly, "Well, you miss a lot
of comfort in life. I've seen a good many troubles go up in smoke."
Mr. Wright sat down heavily and sighed.
"Sam been giving you something to think about?" Dr. Lavendar asked
cheerfully.
"He always gives me something to think about. He is beyond my
comprehension! I may say candidly, that I cannot understand him. What
do you think he has done now?"
"Nothing wicked."
"I don't know how you look at it," Samuel said, "but from my point of
view, buying prints with other people's money is dangerously near
wickedness. This present matter, however, is just imbecility. I told
him one day last week to write to a man in Troy, New York, about a
bill of exchange. Well, he wrote. Oh, yes--he wrote. Back comes a
letter from the man, enclosing my young gentleman's epistle, with a
line added "--Mr. Wright fumbled in his breast pocket to find the
document--" here it is: 'Above remarks about ships not understood
by our House.' Will you look at that, sir, for the 'remarks about
ships'?"
Dr. Lavendar took the sheet stamped "Bank of Pennsylvania," and hunted
for his spectacles. When he settled them on his nose he turned the
letter over and read in young Sam's sprawling hand: "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the
topless towers of Ilium?"