We had been up into the interior
together. He was recommended to me as a sort of secretary and
assistant and knew more than I did about most things. When he caught
sight of me he cried like a baby, and I sat down and heard what the
trouble was, for I had let him go off with somebody who could give him
a good salary,--a government man of position, and I thought poor Bob
would be put in the way of something better. Dear me, the climate was
killing him before my eyes, and I took passage for both of us on the
next day's steamer. When I got him home I turned my bank account into
a cheque and tucked it into his pocket, and told him to marry his wife
and settle down and be respectable and forget such a wandering old
fellow as I."
The listener made a little sound of mingled admiration and disgust.
"So you're the same piece of improvidence as ever! I wonder if you
worked your passage over to Boston, or came as a stowaway? Well, I'm
glad to give you house-room, and, to tell the truth, I was wondering
how I should get on to-morrow without somebody to help me in a piece
of surgery. My neighbors are not very skillful, but they're good men
every one of them, unless it's old Jackson, who knows no more about
the practice of medicine than a turtle knows about the nearest fixed
star. Ferris! I don't wonder at your giving away the last cent you had
in the world, I only wonder that you had a cent to give. I hope the
young man was grateful, that's all, only I'm not sure I like his
taking it.
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