"Jenkinson!" he gasped. "Jenkinson! The man's insatiable--he has
been watching the hotel in his lust for blood! He threatened last
night to cut my liver out and give it to the crows--my unfortunate
liver on which you, doctor, have wasted so much solicitude. He used
the most extraordinary language--not," the Major added, gripping the
arms of his chair and sitting erect, "not that he shall find me slow
in answering his threats."
"My dear Major," I cried, "under what delusion are you labouring?
Mr. Jenkinson, believe me, is incapable of hurting a fly. You must
have mistaken your man. Come and see him for yourself." And drawing
him to the window, I pointed after the figure of the retreating
jeweller.
The Major's brow cleared. "No," he admitted, "that is not in the
least like him. Still, he gave me his name as Jenkinson.
Oh! decidedly that is not the man."
"The name is not uncommon," said I. "Excuse me, I must hurry, or he
will be out of sight!" And I ran downstairs and out into the street
as Mr. Jenkinson disappeared around the corner. Following briskly, I
brought him into sight again a moment before he turned aside into a
small tavern--'The Lamb and the Flag'--half-way down the Mall.
Now 'The Lamb and the Flag' enjoyed a low reputation, and for a
citizen of ordinary respectability to be seen entering it at that
hour--well, it invited surmise. But I knew Mr. Jenkinson to be above
suspicion; he might be the ground-landlord--I had heard of his
purchasing several small bits of property about the town. In short,
it was almost with consternation that, following into the dirty bar,
I surprised him in the act of raising a glass of brandy to his lips
with a trembling hand.
I certainly took him aback, and he almost dropped the glass.
"Excuse me, Dr. Frampton," he stammered, "pray do not think--this
indulgence--not a habit, I assure you. Oh, doctor! I have passed a
fearful night!"
"Indeed?" said I sympathetically. "If my services can be of use--"
"No, no," he interrupted, paused, and seemed to consider.
"At least, not yet."
"It seems, then, that I am doubly inopportune," I said, "for I have
been following you to ask a small favour--not for myself, but for a
certain Major Dignum, at the Grand Pump Hotel; nothing more than the
attesting of a signature--a mere matter of form."
"Major Dignum? Ah, yes! the name is familiar to me from the
_Courant's_ Visitors' List." Mr. Jenkinson passed an agitated hand
across his forehead. "I cannot recall seeing him in my shop. By all
means, doctor--to oblige the gentleman--in my unhappy frame of mind--
it will be a--a distraction."
So back I led the jeweller, explaining on the way how I had caught
sight of him from the hotel window, and ushered him up to the
apartment where the Major sat impatiently awaiting us.
"Good morning, sir," the Major began, with a bow. "So your name's
Jenkinson? Most extraordinary! I--I am pleased to hear it, sir."
"Extraordinary!" the Major repeated, as he bent over the papers to
sign them. "I am asking you, Mr. Jenkinson, to witness this
signature to my last will and testament. In the midst of life--by
the way, what is your Christian name?"
"William, sir."
"Incredible!" The Major bounced up from his chair and sat down again
trembling, while he fumbled with his waistcoat pocket. "Ah, no!--to
be sure--I gave it to my seconds," he muttered. "In the midst of
life--"
"You may well say so, sir!" The jeweller took a seat and adjusted
his spectacles as I sanded the Major's signature and pushed the
document across the table. "A man," Mr. Jenkinson continued, dipping
his pen wide of the ink-pot, "on the point of exchanging time for
eternity--"
"That thought is peculiarly unpleasant to me just now," the Major
interrupted. "May I beg you not to enlarge upon it?"
"But I _must_, sir!" cried out Mr. Jenkinson, as though the words
were wrested from him by an inward agony; and tearing open his coat,
he plucked a packet of folded papers from his breast-pocket and
slapped it down upon the table. "You have called me in, gentlemen,
to witness a will. I ask you in return to witness mine--which must
be at least ten times as urgent."
"Another will!" I glanced at the Major, who stared wildly about him,
but could only mutter: "Jenkinson! William Jenkinson!"
"To-morrow, sir," pursued the jeweller, his voice rising almost to a
scream, "you may have forgotten the transient fears which drove you
to this highly proper precaution. For you the sun will shine, the
larks sing, your blood will course with its accustomed liveliness,
and your breast expand to the health-giving breeze. I don't blame
you for it--oh, dear, no! not in the least. But you will admit it's
a totally different thing to repose beneath the churchyard sod on a
mere point of honour, with an assassin's bullet in your heart--not to
mention that he threatened to tear it out and fling it to the crows!"
"The deuce!" shouted the Major, "your heart, did you say?"
"I did, sir."
"You are quite sure! Your heart?--you are certain it was your heart?
Not your liver? Think, man!"
"He did not so much as allude to that organ, sir, though I have no
doubt he was capable of it."
While we gazed upon one another, lost in a maze of extravagant
surmise, a riotous rush of feet took the staircase by storm, and the
door crashed open before two hilarious Irishmen, of whom the
spokesman wore the reddest thatch of hair it has ever been my lot to
cast eyes on. The other, so far as I can remember, confined his
utterances to frequent, vociferous, and wholly inarticulate cries of
the chase.
The Major presented them to us as Captain Tom O'Halloran and Mr.
Finucane.
"And we've had the divvle's own luck, Major, dear," announced Tom
O'Halloran. "The blayguard's from home. Ah, now! don't be
dispirited, 'tis an early walk he's after takin'; at laste, that's
what the slip of a gurrl towld us who answered the door; and mighty
surprised she seemed to open it to a pair of customers at such an
hour. For what d'ye suppose he calls himself when he's at home?
A jooler, sorr; a dirthy jooler."
"A jeweller!" I cried aloud.
"No more, no less. Says I, there's quare gentlefolks going in these
times, but I don't cool my heels waitin' in a jooler's shop with a
challenge for the principal when he chooses to walk in to business.
So I said to the gurrl: 'You may tell your master,' I said, 'there's
two gentlemen have called, and will have his blood yet in a bottle,'
I said; 'but any time will do between this and to-morrow.' And with
that I came away. But Mr. Finucane here suggested that, whilst we
were at it, we might save time and engage the surgeon. So on our way
back we rang up Dr. Frampton. No luck again; the doctor was out.
Faix! early walkin' seems the fashion at this health resort.
But we've brought along his assistant, if that's any use to you, and
he's downstairs at this moment on the door-mat."
The captain put his head outside and whistled. Mr. Finucane assisted
with a lifelike imitation of a coach-horn, and Mr. MacRea, thus
summoned, appeared upon the threshold.
I cannot accurately describe what followed, for the jeweller, by
casting himself into my arms, engaged a disproportionate share of my
attention. I believe the Major caught up a loo table and held it
before him as a shield.
"You see," said Mr. MacRea, that afternoon, as I escorted him to the
office of the Bath Coaching Company, to book his seat for that city,
"on arriving at the Hotwells last evening, I naturally wished,
Dr. Frampton, to assure myself that your position as a medical man
answered to the glowing descriptions of it in your correspondence.
I could think of no better method to arrive at this than by mingling
with the gay throng in the Assembly Rooms; and I deemed that to take
a hand at cards at the public tables would be the surest way to
overhear the chit-chat of the fashionable world, and maybe elicit its
opinion of you. But alas, sir! a man cannot play at the cards
without exposing himself to the risk of losing. At the first table I
lost--not heavily indeed, yet considerably. I rose and changed to
another table; again I lost--this time the last sixpence in my
pocket. Now, it is an idiosyncrasy of mine, maybe, but I cannot lose
at the cards without losing also my temper; and the form it takes
with me, Dr. Frampton, is too often an incontrollable impulse to pull
the winner's nose. I have argued with myself against this tendency a
score of times, but it will not be denied. So, sir, last night,
penniless and in a foreign land, I paced to and fro beneath the trees
in front of the Assembly Rooms, and when this Mr. Jenkinson emerged,
I accosted him and pulled his nose. To my astonishment he gave me a
ticket and assured me that I should hear from him. Sir, we have no
such practice at Largs, but it is my desire to conform with the
customs of this country, especially in matters of etiquette.
Consequently, after pulling the second gentleman's nose, I handed him
the first gentleman's ticket, having none of my own and being
ignorant (in the darkness) that it bore the first gentleman's name.
It was a mischance, sir, but so far as I can see one that might have
happened to anybody. You say that even after apologising--for on
reflection I am always willing to apologise for any conduct into
which my infirmity of temper may have betrayed me--it is impossible
for me to continue here as your assistant. I am glad, then, that
prudence counselled me to provide two strings to my bow, and engage
myself to Dr. Mathers of Bath, on the chance that you proved
unsatisfactory; and I thank you for the month's salary, which I could
not perhaps claim under the circumstances as a right, but which I am
happy to accept as a favour."