"I won't talk about anything else," said Benjamin Wright.

Dr. Lavendar sighed, but he did not encourage perversity by arguing
against it. "Benjamin," he said, "I will tell Samuel of your wish to
see him--"

"My _wish!_"

Dr. Lavendar would not notice the interruption. "Will you appoint the
time?"

"Oh, the sooner the better; get through with it! Get through with it!"
He stared at his visitor and blinked rapidly; a moment later he shook
all over. "Lavendar, it will kill me!" He was very frail, this
shrunken old man in the green dressing-gown and high beaver hat, with
his lower lip sucked in like a frightened child's. The torch of life,
blown so often into furious flame by hurricanes of rage, had consumed
itself, and it seemed now as if its flicker might be snuffed out by
any slightest gust. "He may come up to-night," he mumbled, shivering
in the hot sunshine and the drift of locust blossoms, as if he were
cold.

"It can't be to-night; he's gone out West. He gets back Saturday. I'll
send him up Sunday evening--if I can."

"Gad-a-mercy, Lavendar," Benjamin Wright said whimpering, "you've got
to come, too!" He looked at his old friend with scared eyes. "I won't
go to the gate with you. Can't leave these birds. I'm a slave to 'em."

But Dr. Lavendar saw that shaking legs were the real excuse; and he