"Sir!" said Dr. Girnigo, turning upon his junior and angrily stamping his foot.
Gilbert held out his hand, and as the Doctor did not take it he waggled it feebly in the air with a sort of impotent good-fellowship.
"All right," he said; "better presently—only c-curing Miss—Miss Girni—_goo-ahoo—arish-chee-hoo_—of a cold!"
"I do not know any one of that name, sir!" thundered the Doctor, not wholly unreasonably.
"No?" said Gilbert, anxiously; "I understood that this—_a-tishoo_—lady was Miss Girnigo, though I thought she was too young for a daughter—your granddaughter, perhaps, Doctor?"
And the smile once more took in Miss Girnigo as if she had been a beautiful picture.
By this time Miss Girnigo had somewhat recovered.
"Papa," she said, sharply, "Mr. Denholm is going to be such an acquisition. He is a botanist—a Fellow of the Linnæan Society, I understand——"
"Of Pittenweem," muttered Gilbert between his teeth.
"And he is going to preach on Sunday. You have had a lot to worry you this week and need a rest. Besides, your best shirts are not ironed—-not dry indeed. The weather has been so bad!"
"I had made up my mind to preach on Sabbath myself," said Dr. Girnigo, who, though a tyrant untamed without, was held in considerable subjection to the higher power within the bounds of his own house.
"Nonsense, papa—I will not allow you to think of such a thing!" cried Miss Girnigo. "Besides, Mr. Denholm is coming to supper to-night, and we will talk botany all the time!"
Which was why the Eel, falling off his bicycle at 1.45 p.m. that same day in front of my house in Cairn Edward (sixteen miles away), burst into my consulting-room with the following demand, proclaimed in frenzied accents: "Lend me your Bentley’s Botany, or something—not that beastly jaw-breaking German thing you are so fond of, but something plain and easy, with the names of all the plants in. I have the whole thing to get up by eight o’clock to-night, and I’ll eat my head if I can remember what a cotyledon is!"
It is believed that on the way back the Eel studied Bentley, cunningly adjusted on the handlebar, with loops of string to keep the pages from fluttering. (He was a trick-rider of repute.) At any rate, he did not waste his time, and arrived at the manse so full of botanical terms that he had considerable difficulty in making himself intelligible to the maid, who on this occasion, being cleaned up, opened the door to him in state.