While Mr. Cassall was standing, with his teacup, before the glowing wood
fire, he said, "Be my secretary for half an hour, Molly, my pet. Write
and ask Blair, and that other whom I don't know--Fullerton. Yes; ask
them to dinner. And, let me see, you can't ask Mr. Phoenix the
Sawbones?"
"Who, uncle?" "Why, the young doctor that performs such prodigies, of
course."
"He's out on the sea now, dear, and I expect that he's in some
abominable cabin--"
"Catching smallpox to infect cleanly people with?"
"No, dear. He is most likely tending some helpless tatterdemalion, and
moving about like a clever nurse. He is strong--so strong. He pulled a
man through a wave with one hand while he held the rigging with the
other, and the man told me that it was enough to tear the strongest man
to pieces"
"Here, stop the catalogue. Why, Sawbones must be Phoebus Apollo! If you
talk much more I shall ask him a question or two. Go on with your
secretary's duties, you naughty girl."
So ended the enslavement of Robert Cassall, and so, I hope, began his
immortality. Oh! Marion Dearsley; sweet English lady. This is what you
were turning over in your maiden meditations out at sea. Demure, deep,
delicious plotter. What a _coup_! All the mischievous North Sea shall be
jocund for this, before long. Surely they must name _one_ vessel after
_you_! You are a bloodless Judith, and you have enchanted a perfectly
blameless Holofernes.
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