cosy,
shouldn't we?"

"Janet will manage pretty well," said the doctor.

"Oh, you'd better have Joe; there's nothing like a good servant at
table. I say, Janet, just send that fellow in, will you?"

"We shall do very well without him," said the doctor, becoming rather
red about the cheek-bones, and with a slight gleam of determination
about the eye. Janet, who saw how matters stood, made no attempt to
obey the baronet's order.

"Oh, nonsense, doctor; you think he's an uppish sort of fellow, I
know, and you don't like to trouble him; but when I'm near him, he's
all right; just send him in, will you?"

"Sir Louis," said the doctor, "I'm accustomed to none but my own old
woman here in my own house, and if you will allow me, I'll keep my
old ways. I shall be sorry if you are not comfortable." The baronet
said nothing more, and the dinner passed off slowly and wearily
enough.

When Mary had eaten her fruit and escaped, the doctor got into one
arm-chair and the baronet into another, and the latter began the only
work of existence of which he knew anything.

"That's good port," said he; "very fair port."

The doctor loved his port wine, and thawed a little in his manner. He
loved it not as a toper, but as a collector loves his pet pictures.
He liked to talk about it, and think about it; to praise it, and hear
it praised; to look at it turned towards the light, and to count over
the years it had lain in his cellar.

"Yes," said he, "it's pretty fair wine. It was, at least, when I got
it, twenty years ago, and I don't suppose time has hurt it;" and he
held the glass up to the window, and looked at the evening light
through the ruby tint of the liquid. "Ah, dear, there's not much of
it left; more's the pity."

"A good thing won't last for ever. I'll tell you what now; I wish
I'd brought down a dozen or two of claret. I've some prime stuff in
London; got it from Muzzle & Drug, at ninety-six shillings; it was
a great favour, though. I'll tell you what now, I'll send up for a
couple of dozen to-morrow. I mustn't drink you out of house, high and
dry; must I, doctor?"

The doctor froze immediately.

"I don't think I need trouble you," said he; "I never drink claret,
at least not here; and there's enough of the old bin left to last
some little time longer yet."

Sir Louis drank two or three glasses of wine very quickly after each
other, and they immediately began to tell upon his weak stomach. But
before he was tipsy