“By-the-way,” he remarked, after discussing the possibilities of a local tennis tournament, “a friend of mine asked me whether I knew anything of an eccentric old fellow living somewhere near here; a bit of a miser, I believe. You are ubiquitous in these parts. I might inquire of you.”
The doctor appeared encouraged; he was in a limp and idealess mood; domesticities had depressed him. It was a relief to talk to a keen, kindly young fellow whose eyes were full of sunlight. They drew two chairs under the shade of a lime. Gabriel produced cigars. The two men exchanged a species of mischievous twinkle that was vastly human.
“Rum things, women. Take my tip—make ’em knuckle under early; now or never. Are these Murias?”
“Nicotina is never in a temper. Terrible thing being a doctor. These functions make me sweat. We medicoes have to trot round and do the affable shop-walker to the community. Good for the practice, you know. By Jove, we have to salve every soul with blarney. It’s blarney, blarney, blarney from morning till night. My tongue’s dry. Going to be married soon?”
“Fine woman your fiancée, fit to make every subaltern in the Rilchester barracks envy you like the devil. Let me see, you wanted information. What’s the person’s name?”
“I almost forget it. Gilder—Gildersleeve—Gildersedge. Ah, yes, Gildersedge! Rather a miser, my friend said.”
The doctor withdrew his cigar from his lips.
“By George! yes. I know the old beggar—a regular Silas; lives in a house smothered up in trees on the third hill beyond Rilchester—a regular hermitage, like a house out of a novel. You can’t see it for trees till you get well inside the gate. I attended there on one solitary occasion. It was the servant. Res natura. I only got paid after a lawyer’s letter. Never been there since.”
Gabriel appeared interested despite his affectation. He had turned the doctor into good grazing land, and anecdotes bristled. Dr. Marjoy had not lived fifteen years with his wife without assimilating some of her linguistical propensities.
“I remember talking with Clissold, of the bank,” he said, “and he told me that old Gildersedge’s figures totted up phenomenally. He’s worth two Scrooges. And, by Jeremy! he has a daughter; I was forgetting that daughter.”