did not
receive the telegram till this morning. That made me so late."

"Humph!" ejaculated the lawyer, and he took some more snuff.

"And how is Lawrence this morning?" said the professor in his calm, mild
way. "I hope better, Mrs Dunn."

"Bless the man! No. He is worse," cried Mrs Dunn shortly.

"Dear me! I am very sorry. Poor boy! I'm afraid I have neglected him.
His poor father was so kind to me."

"Everybody has neglected him, sir," cried Mrs Dunn, "and the doctor
says that the poor boy will die."

"Mrs Dunn, you shock me," cried the professor, with the tears in his
eyes, and his whole manner changing. "Is it so bad as this?"

"Quite, sir," cried the lawyer, "and I want to consult you as my
co-executor and trustee about getting the boy somewhere in the south of
England or to France."

"But medical assistance," said the professor. "We must have the best
skill in London."

"He has had it, sir," cried Mrs Dunn, "and they can't do anything for
him. He's in a decline."

"There, sir, you hear," said the lawyer. "Now, then, what's to be
done?"

"Done!" cried the professor, with a display of animation that surprised
the others. "He must be removed to a warmer country at once. I had no
idea that matters were so bad as this. Mr Burne, Mrs Dunn, I am a
student much interested in a work I am writing on the Byzantine empire,
and I was starting in a few days for Asia Minor. My passage was taken.
But all that must be set aside, and I will stop and see to my dear old
friend's son."

_Poo woomp poomp. Pah_!

Mr Burne blew a perfectly triumphal blast with his pocket-handkerchief,
took out his snuff-box, put it back, jumped up, and, crossing to where
the professor was standing, shook his hand very warmly, and without a
word, while Mrs Dunn wiped her eyes upon her very stiff watered silk
apron, but found the result so unsatisfactory that she smoothed it down,
and hunted out a pocket-handkerchief from somewhere among the folds of
her dress and polished her eyes dry.

Then she seemed as if she put a sob in that piece of white cambric, and
wrapped it up carefully, just as if it were something solid, doubling
the handkerchief over and over and putting it in her pocket before going
up to the professor and kissing his hand.

"Ha!" said the latter, smiling at first one and then the other. "This
is very good of you. I don't often find people treat me so kindly as
this. You see, I am such an abstracted, d