Since her visit to Leavesley Miss Hancock felt certain that her system of petty espionage had been discovered: the question remained as to what course her brother would take. He had as yet said nothing.

One fact stood before her very plainly: his infatuation for Miss Lambert. She had examined Fanny very attentively, and despite the fact that she had plotted and planned for years to keep her brother single, had he at that moment entered the room with the news that he was engaged to be married to George Lambert's daughter, she would have received it not altogether as a blow. In her lifelong opposition to his marrying, she had always figured his possible wife as a woman who would oust her, but Fanny was totally unlike all other[Pg 275] girls she had ever met—very different from Miss Wilkinson and the other middle-class young women, with minds of their own, from whom she had fortunately or unfortunately guarded her brother. There were new possibilities about Fanny. She was so soft and so charmingly irresponsible that the idea of hectoring, ordering, directing and generally sitting upon her was equivalent to the idea of a new pleasure in life. To order, to put straight, to admonish were functions as necessary to Miss Hancock's being as excretion or respiration; a careless housemaid to correct, or a shiftless friend to advise, called these functions into play; and the process, however it affected the housemaid or the friend, left Miss Hancock a healthier and happier woman.

The Almighty, who, however we may look at the fact, made the fly to be the intimate companion of the spider, seemed in the construction of Miss Lambert to have had the vital requirements of Miss Hancock decidedly in view.

She had almost begun to form plans as to Fanny's dress allowance, in the event of her marriage—how it should be spent; her hair,[Pg 276] how it should be dressed; and her life, how it should be generally made a conglomeration of petty miseries.

On the night before the day Bevan left for Sussex Mr Hancock and his great toe had a conversation. What his right great toe said to Mr Hancock that night I will report very shortly for the benefit of elderly gentlemen in general; Anacreon has said the thing much better in verse, but verse is out of date. Said the right great toe of Mr Hancock in a monologue punctuated with the stabs of a stiletto:

"How old are you? Sixty-three? (stab), that's what you say, but you know very well you were born sixty-five years and six months ago. Wake up (stab, stab), you must not go to sleep. Sixty-five—five years more and you will be seventy; fifteen years more and you'll be eighty, and you are in love (stab, stab, stab). I'll teach you to eat sweet cakes and ice creams; I'll (stab) teach you to drink Burgundy. And you dared to call me Arthritic Rheumatism the other night, you (stab) dared! Now, go to sleep (stab, stab) ... wake up again, I want to speak to you," etc., etc., etc.

[Pg 277]

Gout talks to one very like a woman: you cannot reply to it, it simply talks on.

At eight o'clock next morning, when Miss Hancock left her room, Boffins informed her that her brother was ill and wished to see her.

"I'm all right," said James, who was lying in bed with the sheets up to his nose, "I'm all right—for heaven's sake, don't fidget with that window blind—I want my letters brought up; shan't go to the office to-day. You can send round and tell Bridgewater to call, and send for Carter, I've got a touch of this Arthritic Rheumatism (ow!)—do ask that servant to make less row on the stairs. No, don't want any breakfast."

"Well, Hancock," said Dr Carter, when he arrived, "got it again—whew! There's a foot! What have you been eating?"

"Nothing," groaned the patient; "it's worry has done it, I believe."

"Now, don't talk nonsense. What have you been eating and drinking?"

"Well, I believe I had an ice-cream some days ago, and—a cake."

"An ice-cream, and a cake, and a glass of port—come, confess your sins."

[Pg 278]

"No, a glass of Burgundy."

"An ice-cream, and a cake, and a glass of Burgundy—well, you can commit suicide if you choose, but I can only warn you of this that if you wish to commit suicide in a most unpleasant manner you'll do such a thing again."

"Dash it, Carter—oh, Lord! go gently, don't touch it there! What's the good of being alive? I remember the days when I could drink a whole bottle of port without turning a hair."

"I know—but you're not as young as you were then, Hancock."

"Oh, do say something original—say I'm getting old, and have done with it!"

"It's not your age so much as your diathesis," said the pitiless Carter. "It's unfortunate for you, but there you are. You might be worse, every man is born with a disease. Yours is gout—you might be worse. Suppose you had aneurism? Now, here's a prescription; get it made up at once. Thank goodness, you can stand colchicum."
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