"Why that I probably shan't make old--make older--bones, and that you can
stick it out till I'm removed."

"You _are_ too clever to live!" Pemberton repeated.

"I call it a mean idea," Morgan pursued. "But I shall punish you by the
way I hang on."

"Look out or I'll poison you!" Pemberton laughed.

"I'm stronger and better every year. Haven't you noticed that there
hasn't been a doctor near me since you came?"

"_I'm_ your doctor," said the young man, taking his arm and drawing him
tenderly on again.

Morgan proceeded and after a few steps gave a sigh of mingled weariness
and relief. "Ah now that we look at the facts it's all right!"




CHAPTER VII


They looked at the facts a good deal after this and one of the first
consequences of their doing so was that Pemberton stuck it out, in his
friend's parlance, for the purpose. Morgan made the facts so vivid and
so droll, and at the same time so bald and so ugly, that there was
fascination in talking them over with him, just as there would have been