. . . It _is_ the Ancient Mariner come home, but you needn't
imitate the Pilot and fall down in a fit. . . . Where's the Pilot's
Boy, by the way--young Jimmy Collingwood? You still keep Jephson, I
see. . . . I happened on Jephson at your street-door, just returned
from posting a letter. Jephson performed the holy Hermit very
creditably: he raised his eyes and almost sat down on the doorstep
and prayed where he did sit. 'Doctor Foe!' said Jephson.
'Good Lord, send may I never--!'--which amounts to a prayer,
eh? . . . He let me in with his latchkey, and I told him I'd run up
unannounced. . . . Well?"
He came forward. In the old days Jack and I never shook hands; nor
did we now. He set down hat, gloves, and umbrella carelessly on my
knee-hole table and dropped into a chair with a long-drawn sigh.
"Reminds one--eh?--of the famous stage-direction in _The Rovers--
Several soldiers cross the stage wearily, as if returning from the
Thirty Years' War_. . . . Well? What are you still staring at?
. . . Oh, I perceive! It's my clothes. . . . Yes; I should inform
you that they are expensive, and the nearest compromise a Valparaiso
tailor and I could reach in realising our several ideas of a Harley
Street doctor.
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