'And Stavordale would stake it against a bootjack--rather than not play at all!' Sir George answered complacently.
'So I think,' Sir George answered coolly. 'But one must be in the fashion, doctor.'
'One must be in the Fleet!' the doctor retorted. 'To be in the fashion you'll ruin yourself! If you have not done it already,' he continued with something like a groan. 'There, pass the bottle. I have not patience with you. One of these fine days you will awake to find yourself in the Rules.'
'Doctor,' Soane answered, returning to his point, 'you know something.'
'And what if I do?' Dr. Addington answered, looking thoughtfully through his wine. 'To tell the truth, I do, Sir George, I do, and I wish I did not; for the news I have is not of the best. There is a claimant to that money come forward. I do not know his name or anything about him; but his lordship thinks seriously of the matter. I am not sure,' the doctor continued, with his professional air, and as if his patient in the other room were alone in his mind, 'that the vexation attending it has not precipitated this attack. I'm not--at all--sure of it. And Lady Chatham certainly thinks so.'
Sir George was some time silent. Then, with a fair show of indifference, 'And who is the claimant?' he asked.
'That I don't know,' Dr. Addington answered. 'He purports, I suppose, to be your uncle's heir. But I do know that his attorney has forwarded copies of documents to his lordship, and that Lord Chatham thinks the matter of serious import.'
'The worse for me,' said Sir George, forcing a yawn. 'As you say, doctor, your news is not of the best.'
'Nor, I hope, of the worst,' the physician answered with feeling. 'The estate is entailed?'
Sir George shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'It is mortgaged. But that is not the same thing.'
The doctor's face showed genuine distress. 'Ah, my friend, you should not have done that,' he said reproachfully. 'A property that has been in the family--why, since--'
'My great-grandfather the stay-maker's time,' Sir George answered flippantly, as he emptied his glass. 'You know Selwyn's last upon that? It came by bones, and it is going by bones.'
'God forbid!' said the physician, rubbing his gold-rimmed glasses with an air of kindly vexation, not unmixed with perplexity. 'If I thought that my boy would ever come to--to--'