'
'He is older, though; years older. But,' with a slap upon
the table, 'it's the rum you see in my face - rum and sin.
This man, perhaps, may have an easy conscience and a good
digestion. Conscience! Hear me speak. You would think I
was some good, old, decent Christian, would you not? But no,
not I; I never canted. Voltaire might have canted if he'd
stood in my shoes; but the brains' - with a rattling fillip
on his bald head - 'the brains were clear and active, and I
saw and made no deductions.'
'If you know this doctor,' I ventured to remark, after a
somewhat awful pause, 'I should gather that you do not share
the landlord's good opinion.'
Fettes paid no regard to me.
'Yes,' he said, with sudden decision, 'I must see him face to
face.'
There was another pause, and then a door was closed rather
sharply on the first floor, and a step was heard upon the
stair.
'That's the doctor,' cried the landlord. 'Look sharp, and
you can catch him.'
It was but two steps from the small parlour to the door of
the old George Inn; the wide oak staircase landed almost in
the street; there was room for a Turkey rug and nothing more
between the threshold and the last round of the descent; but
this little space was every evening brilliantly lit up, not
only by the light upon the stair and the great signal-lamp
below the sign, but by the warm radiance of the bar-room
window.
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