and try something milder; now do, to-morrow; for I should never forgive myself if it made you worse instead of better; and the air is too strong for lots of people.”
I was neither too ill nor too vexed to laugh outright in his face.
“It’s not the air,” said I; “it’s that splendid old Madeira of yours, that was too strong for me, if you like! No, no, Rattray, you don’t get rid of me so cheaply-much as you seem to want to!”
“I was only thinking of you,” he rejoined, with a touch of pique that convinced
for this was not the first time my next-door neighbor had tried to scrape acquaintance with me.
“But surely, sir, I heard the very dickens of a row?”
“You may have done.”
“I was afraid some one had broken into your room!”
“As a matter of fact,” said I, put to shame by the undiminished good-humor