"All right, eh, doctor?" said the young man, looking up in the bland, smooth face, with a good many wrinkles about his right eye.

"I--er--do not understand you."

"Brandy all right? No pilly-coshy or anything of that sort in it? Fill right up."

"No," said the doctor, smiling. "It's the best brandy, and I'll take a little with you."

He filled up his guest's glass, and then smilingly took a second tumbler from the cupboard, and mixed himself a draught.

"Yes, not bad brandy, doctor, but wants age," said Poynter, rinsing his mouth with the hot spirit and water, as if he had been cleaning his teeth. "Now, I have a few dozen of a fine old cognac in my cellar that would give this fifty in a hundred, and lick it hollow."

Perhaps to be expressive, Mr James Poynter shuffled his shoulders against the cushion of the chair and licked his lips, ending with a fish-like smack.

"Let me send you a dozen, doctor."

"No, no, my dear sir. I did not know you were in the wine and spirit trade."

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"And I could not afford--"

"Yah! Who asked you to? I meant as a present. Wine and spirit trade, indeed! Hang it! Do I look like a publican?"

Dr Chartley told an abominable lie, for if ever man, from the crown of his pomatumed head, down over his prominent nubbey forehead, small eyes, prominent cheekbones, unpleasant nose, and heavy jaw, to the toes of his boots, looked like a fast, race-attending licenced victualler, it was James Poynter.

Dr Chartley said, in answer to the indignant question, "No."

"Humph!" ejaculated the visitor, mollifying himself with a large draught of brandy-and-water. "I should think not, indeed. I shall send you a dozen of that brandy."

"No, no, I beg!" said the doctor earnestly; and his white forehead puckered up.

"Yes, I shall. May I smoke?"

"Certainly--certainly."

A very large, well-filled cigar case was already in the visitor's hands.

"Take one."

"No, thanks. I never smoke."

"Never mind, Hendon does. Here, I shall leave those six for him."

"I really would rather you did not, Poynter; indeed I would."

"Get out? What's the good of having these things if some one else don't enjoy 'em too? Make Hendon a bit more civil to me. He is so jolly--so jolly--what do you call it?--soopercilious with me. Because I'm not a doctor, I suppose. There's half a dozen good ones for him when he comes in. Now then, doctor, go ahead. Want to see my tongue?"

"No--no," said the doctor; "the look of your eye is sufficient, Mr Poynter. It is much clearer. Felt any more of the chest symptoms?"

"No, not so much of them; but I don't sleep as I should: feverish and tossy--spend half my nights punching my pillow."

"Have you given up the suppers?"

"Well, not quite. You see a man can't drop everything. I know a lot of men, and one's obliged, you see, to do as they do. But now look here; doctor. You've been treating me these three months."

"Dear me! is it so long as that?"

"More. You've poked my chest about, and listened to my works, and given me all sorts of stuff to take, and told me to eat this and drink that, and now I suppose you think I'm sound, wind and limb?"

"Certainly, my dear sir, certainly. I told you so at the first, and that no treatment was necessary."

"Yes, yes, all right; but I'd got to be a bit nervous doctor, and now, as I say, you think me sound, wind and limb?"

"Quite."

"Then you'll agree, won't you?"

"Agree?" said the doctor, looking over the glasses he had put on when commencing to be professional.

"Yes. I'm as good a man as there is at Mincing Lane over a tea bargain; but a job like this knocks the wind out of me, makes me feel a damaged lot where the sea-water's got in, or a Maloo mixture. Can't do it: but you understand."

"Really, Mr Poynter, I--"

"Now don't run away, doctor; don't, please. I'm a warm man, and I'm getting warmer. My house is tip-top. I gave two-fifty for the piano, I did, 'pon my soul, and fifty apiece for the cut-glass chandies in the drawing-room. There ain't a better garden in Sydenham. You're willing, ain't you?"

"Do you mean--"

"Yes, that's it. Say the word. There, I've loved her ever since I first saw her. And situated as you are, doctor--"

"Mr Poynter."

"No offence meant--far from it; but of course I can't help seeing how things are. Come, you'll give your consent, and get hers, and I'll make settlements--anything you like. You shall come and have a bit o' dinner with us every Sunday, and a glass o' real port wine; and if you'd rather have a cab to come home, why, there you are. Come, there's my hand.

Where's yours?"

"Do I understand--"

"Stop a moment, doctor. Of course you'll attend us, whether we're ill or whether we ain't. Keep us in order, like; and as to your fees, why, I ask you now, as a man, what is a fee to me?"

"Mr Poynter!"

"One moment, doctor. I don't say anything about a brougham. If Miss Richmond--I say, doctor, what made you call her Richmond and him Hendon?"

"A foolish whim--eccentricity," said the doctor coldly. "One child was born on the North Road, the other at the pretty old place on the south west."

"I see. Well, as I was saying, if Miss Richmond likes it to be a brougham, either the real thing, or on the job, she has only got to speak, and it's lies."

"Am I to understand, Mr Poynter, that this is a formal proposal for my daughter's hand?"