“I may as well confess to you,” he continued presently, “that I have had a protege myself, but I don’t look for much future joy in watching the development of my plots.  He has taken affairs into his own hands, and I dare say it is much better for him, for if I had caught him young enough, I should have wished him to run the gauntlet of all the professions, not to speak of the arts and sciences.  He was a clever young fellow; I saw him married the day before I left England.  His wife was the daughter of a curate, and he the younger son of a younger son, and it was a love affair worth two or three story-books.  It came to be a question of money alone.  I had known the boy the year before in Bombay and chanced to find him one day in the Marine Hospital at Nagasaki.  We had been up into the interior together.  He was recommended to me as a sort of secretary and assistant and knew more than I did about most things.  When he caught sight of me he cried like a baby, and I sat down and heard what the trouble was, for I had let him go off with somebody who could give him a good salary,—­a government man of position, and I thought poor Bob would be put in the way of something better.  Dear me, the climate was killing him before my eyes, and I took passage for both of us on the next day’s steamer.  When I got him home I turned my bank account into a cheque and tucked it into his pocket, and told him to marry his wife and settle down and be respectable and forget such a wandering old fellow as I.”

The listener made a little sound of mingled admiration and disgust.

“So you’re the same piece of improvidence as ever!  I wonder if you worked your passage over to Boston, or came as a stowaway?  Well, I’m glad to give you house-room, and, to tell the truth, I was wondering how I should get on to-morrow without somebody to help me in a piece of surgery.  My neighbors are not very skillful, but they’re good men every one of them, unless it’s old Jackson, who knows no more about the practice of medicine than a turtle knows about the nearest fixed star.  Ferris!  I don’t wonder at your giving away the last cent you had in the world, I only wonder that you had a cent to give.  I hope the young man was grateful, that’s all, only I’m not sure I like his taking it.”

“He thought I had enough more, I dare say.  He said so much I couldn’t stand his nonsense.  He’ll use it better than I could,” said the guest briefly.  “As I said, I couldn’t bring him up; in the first place I haven’t the patience, and beside, it wouldn’t be just to him.  But you must let me know how you get on with your project; I shall make you a day’s visit once in six months.”

“That’ll be good luck,” responded the cheerful host.  “Now that I am growing old I find I wish for company oftener; just the right man, you know, to come in for an hour or two late in the evening to have a cigar, and not say a word if he doesn’t feel like it.”