Sir George looked at him. 'Come, doctor!' he said. 'You know something! What is it?'
'I know that it is town talk that you lost seven thousand last season; and God knows how many thousands in the three seasons before it!'
'Well, one must live,' Sir George answered lightly.
'But not at that rate.'
'In that state of life, doctor, into which God has been pleased--you know the rest.'
'In that state of life into which the devil!' retorted the doctor with heat.' If I thought that my boy would ever grow up to do nothing better than--than--but there, forgive me. I grow warm when I think of the old trees, and the old pictures, and the old Halls that you fine gentlemen at White's squander in a night! Why, I know of a little place in Oxfordshire, which, were it mine by inheritance--as it is my brother's--I would not stake against a Canons or a Petworth!'
'And Stavordale would stake it against a bootjack--rather than not play at all!' Sir George answered complacently.
'The more fool he!' snapped the doctor.
'So I think.'
'Eh?'
'So I think,' Sir George answered coolly. 'But one must be in the fashion, doctor.'
'One must be in the Fleet!' the doctor retorted. 'To be in the fashion you'll ruin yourself! If you have not done it already,' he continued with something like a groan. 'There, pass the bottle. I have not patience with you. One of these fine days you will awake to find yourself in the Rules.'
'Doctor,' Soane answered, returning to his point, 'you know something.'
'Well--'
'You know why my lord sent for me.'
'And what if I do?' Dr. Addington answered, looking thoughtfully through his wine. 'To tell the truth, I do, Sir George, I do, and I wish I did not; for the news I have is not of the best. There is a claimant to that money come forward. I do not know his name or anything about him; but his lordship thinks seriously of the matter. I am not sure,' the doctor continued, with his professional air, and as if his patient in the other room were alone in his mind, 'that the vexation attending it has not precipitated this attack. I'm not--at all--sure of it. And Lady Chatham certainly thinks so.'
Sir George was some time silent. Then, with a fair show of indifference, 'And who is the claimant?' he asked.
'That I don't know,' Dr. Addington answered. 'He purports, I suppose, to be your uncle's heir. But I do know that his attorney has forwarded copies of documents to his lordship, and that Lord Chatham thinks the matter of serious import.'
'The worse for me,' said Sir George, forcing a yawn. 'As you say, doctor, your news is not of the best.'
'Nor, I hope, of the worst,' the physician answered with feeling. 'The estate is entailed?'
Sir George shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'It is mortgaged. But that is not the same thing.'
The doctor's face showed genuine distress. 'Ah, my friend, you should not have done that,' he said reproachfully. 'A property that has been in the family--why, since--'
'My great-grandfather the stay-maker's time,' Sir George answered flippantly, as he emptied his glass. 'You know Selwyn's last upon that? It came by bones, and it is going by bones.'
'God forbid!' said the physician, rubbing his gold-rimmed glasses with an air of kindly vexation, not unmixed with perplexity. 'If I thought that my boy would ever come to--to--'
'Buzz the gold-headed cane?' Sir George said gravely. 'Yes, doctor, what would you do?'
But the physician, instead of answering, looked fixedly at him, nodded, and turned away. 'You would deceive some, Sir George,' he said quietly, 'but you do not deceive me. When a man who is not jocular by nature makes two jokes in as many minutes, he is hard hit.'
'Insight?' drawled Sir George lazily. 'Or instinct.'
'Experience among madmen--some would call it,' the doctor retorted with warmth. 'But it is not. It is what you fine gentlemen at White's have no part in! Good feeling.'
'Ah!' said Soane; and then a different look came into his face. He stooped and poked the fire. 'Pardon me, doctor,' he said soberly. 'You are a good fellow. It is--well, of course, it's a blow. If your news be true, I stand to lose fifty thousand; and shall be worth about as much as a Nabob spends yearly on his liveries.'
Dr. Addington, in evident distress, thrust back his wig. 'Is it as bad as that?' he said. 'Dear, dear, I did not dream of this.'
'Nor I,' Sir George said drily. 'Or I should not have betted with March.'
'And the old house!' the doctor continued, more and more moved. 'I don't know one more comfortable.'
'You must buy it,' said Soane. 'I have spared the timber, and there is a little of the old wine left.'
'Dear, dear!' the doctor answered; and his sigh said more than the words. Apparently it was also more effectual in moving Sir George. He rose and began to pace the room, choosing a part where his face evaded the light of the candles that stood in heavy silver sconces on the dark mahogany. Presently he laughed, but the laugh was mirthless.
'It is quite the Rake's Progress,' he said, pausing before one of Hogarth's prints which hung on the wall. 'Perhaps I have been a little less of a fool and a little more of a rogue than my prototype; but the end is the same. D----n me, I am sorry for the servants, doctor--though I dare swear that they have robbed me right and left. It is a pity that clumsy fool, Dunborough, did not get home when he had the chance the other day.'
The doctor took snuff, put up his box, filled his glass and emptied it before he spoke. Then, 'No, no, Sir George, it has not come to that yet,' he said heartily. 'There is only one thing for it now. They must do something for you.' And he also rose to his feet, and stood with his back to the fire, looking at his companion.
'Who?' Soane asked, though he knew very well what the other meant.
'The Government,' said the doctor. 'The mission to Turin is likely to be vacant by-and-by. Or, if that be too much to ask, a consulship, say at Genoa or Leghorn, might be found, and serve for a stepping-stone to Florence. Sir Horace has done well there, and you--'
'Might toady a Grand-duke and bear-lead sucking peers--as well as another!' Soane answered with a gesture of disgust. 'Ugh, one might as well be Thomasson and ruin boys. No, doctor, that will not do. I had sooner hang myself at once, as poor Fanny Braddock did at Bath, or put a pistol to my head like Bland!'
'God forbid!' said the doctor solemnly.
Sir George shrugged his shoulders, but little by little his face lost its hardness. 'Yes, God forbid,' he said gently. 'But it is odd. There is poor Tavistock with a pretty wife and two children, and another coming; and Woburn and thirty thousand a year to inherit, broke his neck last week with the hounds; and I, who have nothing to inherit, why nothing hurts me!'
Dr. Addington disregarded his words.
'They must do something for you at home then,' he said, firmly set on his benevolent designs. 'In the Mint or the Customs. There should not be the least difficulty about it. You must speak to his lordship, and it is not to be supposed that he will refuse.'
Sir George grunted, and might have expressed his doubts, but at that moment the sound of voices raised in altercation penetrated the room from the passage. A second later, while the two stood listening, arrested by the noise, the door was thrown open with such violence that the candles flickered in the draught. Two persons appeared on the threshold, the one striving to make his way in, the other to resist the invasion.
The former was our friend