The Little Red Doctor spoke.
Ned Worth was my friend as well as my patient. No need to tell you men,
who knew him, why I was fond of him. I don't suppose any one ever came
in contact with that fantastic and smiling humanity of his without
loving him for it. "Immortal hilarity!" The phrase might have been
coined for him.
It wasn't as physician that I went home with Ned, after pronouncing
sentence upon him, but as friend. I didn't want him to be alone that
first night. Yet I dare say that any one, seeing the two of us, would
have thought me the one who had heard his life-limit defined. He was as
steady as a rock.
"No danger of my being a miser of life," he said. "You've given me leave
to spend freely what's left of it." Well, he spent. Freely and
splendidly!
The spacious old library on the second floor--you know it, Dominie,
smelt of disuse, as we entered, Ned's servant bringing up the rear with
a handbag. Dust had settled down like an army of occupation over
everything. The furniture was shrouded in denim. The tall clock in the
corner stood voiceless. Three months of desertion will change any house
into a tomb. And the Worth mansion was never too cheerful, anyway. Since
the others of the family died, Ned hadn't stayed there long enough at a
time to humanize it.
Ned's man set down the grip, unstrapped it, took his orders for some
late purchases, and left to execute them.
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