"Suppose you ease off a little to the left, Roberts," said the doctor, as the soup-plate was removed. "Rawlinson will not be back to dinner."

"No," said the captain, smiling. "Poor fellow!" he continued, turning to Huish; "you would not have thought he was a little wrong, I suppose?"

"Indeed I should not," said Huish eagerly.

"No," said the captain. "He looks as sane as I am; but he breaks out now and then, poor fellow!"

Just then Daniel was helping the guests to sherry, and Huish noticed that the captain's gla.s.s was pa.s.sed.

It seemed strange, but the conversation took off his attention, and he thought no more of it till Daniel set down the decanter, when, picking up the little round roll that lay by his napkin, the captain threw it with so good an aim that he hit the solid servitor a smart crack on the back of the head.

"Now, Captain Lawdor," said Miss Stonor, in tones of bland reproof, "have I not told you that if you will persist in doing that you must not dine with us?"

"Hush! hush!" he whispered apologetically. "Don't scold me before the company. Poor fellow! I don't like to see a new patient upset. That fellow always pa.s.ses me with the sherry."

John Huish's countenance was so ludicrous at being taken for a new patient that the doctor exchanged glances with his sister, and it was all they could do to keep from bursting into a hearty fit of laughter.

The doctor, however, suppressed his, and said quietly:

"My sister is quite right, Lawdor, and you must get rid of that habit."

The captain drew out his pocket-handkerchief, shed tears, wiped his eyes, and ended by taking out a half-crown, which he slipped into Daniel's hand as he removed his empty plate.

John Huish felt a little disturbed as he saw the real state of affairs, but he tried to appear at his ease, and plunged into conversation with Miss Stonor, not, however, before he had directed an uneasy glance or two at his quiet, pensive companion across the table, who, however, was carrying on a discussion with the doctor.

Huish could not help thinking of the knives as the captain turned to him with a pleasant smile lighting up his ruddy face, from which all trace of sorrow had now pa.s.sed.

"That's a nasty trick," he said; "but I never knew a man without some bad habit or another. I could hit him, though, with a biscuit at fifty paces."

"Indeed," said Huish.

"Yes, that I could. If I've hit Daniel once, I've done it a hundred times. But we were talking about yachting. Now, I've got a plan for a ship which I have submitted to the Admiralty."

"Oh," said Huish to himself, "here, then, is the sore place." Then aloud, "Indeed!"

"Yes; a splendid idea. But, by the way, you know how fond we sailors are of talking about pitching a biscuit?"

"To be sure," said Huish.

"Excuse me a few moments. A sailor always eats when he has a chance.

May be called on deck at any moment. Would you oblige me?" said the captain suddenly to Huish.

"I beg your pardon, certainly," said Huish; and, partly from habit, he placed his gla.s.s in his eye and brought it to bear on the speaker.

"This is rather a good story--eh, doctor?"

"Yes. Go on, Captain Lawdor."

"Well, you see, I had been communicating with the Admiralty for six years about my invention when--would you oblige me by taking that gla.s.s out of your eye?" said the captain, breaking off short in his narrative.

"It irritates me, and makes me feel as if I must throw something at it."

John Huish's eyegla.s.s dropped inside his vest, while, in spite of all his efforts to master his emotions, he glanced uneasily at the door.

"But you would not do anything so rude, Lawdor," said the doctor gravely, as he fixed his eye upon the captain.

"Thank you, doctor. No; of course I would not. I should be extremely sorry to insult a patient of yours."

Huish began to feel for his gla.s.s, but remembered himself, and listened eagerly to the captain, while Mr Roberts seemed to have sunk into a pensive, thoughtful state, paying no heed to what was going on at the table.

"If I had danced attendance in Whitehall once," said Captain Lawdor, "I had hung about that entrance a thousand times, and it was fill up forms, make minutes, present pet.i.tions to my Lords, address this department and come back to that, till it nearly drove me--till," he added hastily, "I was very wroth with them, and one day--let me see, I think I told you,"

he continued, rolling up a piece of new bread into a marble, "that I was an excellent shot with a biscuit?" and he stared hard at Huish.

"Yes, you did," said Huish, smiling.

"Don't laugh, sir," exclaimed the captain. "This is not a ribald jest."

"Breakers ahead, captain," said the doctor, holding his gla.s.s to be refilled.

"To be sure, of course, doctor. Wear ship--you are listening, sir?"

"With the greatest attention," replied Huish, who was becoming reconciled to his position.

"Well, sir, one day I went with my pockets filled with the roundest, smallest, and hardest ships' biscuits I could procure, and--you are not attending, Roberts," he exclaimed, filliping the bread marble at John Huish's _vis-a-vis_, who bowed and smiled.

"Well, sir, as I told you, I went loaded with the biscuits, and marched straight into a board room, or a committee room, or something of the kind, and there I stormed them for quite ten minutes before they got me out. Ha, ha, ha! I emptied my pockets first, and the way I rattled the biscuits on one bald-headed fellow's pate was something to remember. I did not miss him once, Mr Huish," he said, turning sharply round.

"Indeed?" he said, smiling.

"In--deed, in--deed," said the captain. "It was such a head! He was one of those youngish men whose heads are so aggravatingly white and smooth and shiny that they do not look bald, but perfectly naked. He was a Junior Lord of the Admiralty, and I declare to you, sir, that his head was perfectly indecent till I coloured it a little with the biscuits."

"Yes, an amusing story," said the doctor, as the dinner went on. "Come, Roberts, you are very quiet. Have a gla.s.s of that dry champagne?"

"And once again I see that brow," said Mr Roberts in a low, soft, sweet voice: "no bridal wreath is there, a widow's sombre cap conceals--thank you, doctor," he continued, sighing as he altered the position of the gla.s.s.

The dinner pa.s.sed off without any further incident, save that Mr Rawlinson returned looking very quiet and calm, and in time for the second course, of which he partook heartily, rising after the dessert to open the door for Miss Stonor to leave the room, and all in the most natural manner.

"Suppose we go into my room a bit now," said the doctor. "We can have a cigar there;" and Daniel entering at that moment with coffee, it was taken into the doctor's sanctum, the patients following the tray, the doctor hanging back with his princ.i.p.al guest.

"Well, my dear John, do you think you are going mad now?"

"No," was the quick reply.

"Of course not. You see now what even a mild form of mania is."

"I do," was the reply. "But look here, doctor," said Huish earnestly; "this feeling has troubled me terribly just lately."

"And why?" said the doctor sharply, for Huish hesitated.

"Well, the fact is, doctor, it is possible that I may marry some day, and I felt--"