It was a considerable time after the fire before my leg permitted me to resume my studies and my duties among the poor. Meanwhile I had become a regularly-established inmate of Mr Dobson’s house, and was half-jocularly styled “Dr McTougall’s assistant.”

 

I confess that I had some hesitation at first in accepting such generous hospitality, but, feeling that I could not help myself till my leg should recover, I became reconciled to it. Then, as time advanced, the doctor—who was an experimental chemist, as well as a Jack-of-all-trades—found me so useful to him in his laboratory, that I felt I was really earning my board and lodging. Meanwhile Lilly Blythe had been sent to visit an aunt of Dr McTougall’s in Kent for the benefit of her health.

 

This was well. I felt it to be so. I knew that her presence would have a disturbing influence on my studies, which were by that time nearly completed. I felt, also, that it was madness in me to fall in love with a girl whom I could not hope to marry for years, even if she were willing to have me at all, which I very much doubted.

 

I therefore resolved to put the subject away from me, and devote myself heartily to my profession, in the spirit of that Word which tells us that whatsoever our hands find to do we should do it with our might.

 

Success attended my efforts. I passed all my examinations with credit, and became not only a fixture in the doctor’s family, but as he earnestly assured me, a very great help to him.

 

Of course I did not mention the state of my feelings towards Lilly Blythe to any one—not being in the habit of having confidants—except indeed, to Dumps. In the snug little room just over the front door, which had been given to me as a study, I was wont to pour out many of my secret thoughts to my doggie, as he sat before me with cocked ears and demonstrative tail.

 

“You’ve been the making of me, Dumps,” said I, one evening, not long after I had reached the first round of the ladder of my profession. “It was you who introduced me to Lilly Blythe, and through her to Dr McTougall, and you may be sure I shall never forget that! Nay, you must not be too demonstrative. When your mistress left you under my care she said, half-jocularly, no doubt that I was not to steal your heart from her. Wasn’t that absurd, eh? As if any heart could be stolen from her! Of course I cannot regain your heart, Dumps, and I will not even attempt it—‘Honour bright,’ as Robin Slidder says. By the way, that reminds me that I promised to go down to see old Mrs Willis this very night, so I’ll leave you to the tender mercies of the little McTougalls.”

 

As I walked down the Strand my last remark to Dumps recurred to me, and I could not help smiling as I thought of the “tender mercies” to which I had referred. The reader already knows that the juvenile McTougalls were somewhat bloodthirsty in their notions of play. When Dumps was introduced to their nursery—by that time transferred from Dobson’s dining-room to an upper floor—they at once adopted him with open arms. Dumps seemed to be willing, and, fortunately, turned out to be a dog of exceptionally good-nature. He was also tough. No amount of squeezing, bruising, pulling of the ears or tail, or falling upon him, either accidentally or on purpose, could induce him to bite. He did, indeed, yell hideously at times, when much hurt, and he snarled, barked, yelped, growled, and showed his teeth continually, but it was all in play, for he was dearly fond of romps.

分享到：