He's afraid that his
family, his mangy old pointer and dropsical cat, will suffer in
his absence."
"I scorn to answer such an accusation," retorted Smith, "I shall treat
it with dignified contempt, as I do the Doc medicines, which I never
take but always pay for, just to keep him from starving, and to make
him imagine he cures me. But speaking of cats reminds me of a certain
matter which occurred not many years ago. The Doctor here, if his
testimony could be relied upon, knows that I used to be troubled with
indigestion, and was sometimes a little nervous"----
"A _little_ nervous!" interrupted the Doctor, "why he would be as crazy
with the hypo as a March hare. He would insist that he was going to
die, or to the almshouse. He has made two or three dozen wills, to my
certain knowledge, under the firm conviction that he would be in the
ground in a week. A _little_ nervous, indeed!"
"Well," said Smith, "we won't quarrel about the degree of my
nervousness. But in regard to what I was going to say about cats. Some
years ago I occupied a suite of rooms in the second story of a house
rented by a widow lady, to whom I had been under some obligations in
my boyhood, and whom my mother always regarded as her best friend."
(Smith supported the excellent old lady in comfort for a decade, under
pretence of boarding with her, ministering to the last years of her
life with the care and affection of a son.
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