"
"Then will I also call to-morrow," said the Doctor's blind,
roguishly, meaning that if the Major indulged in brown sherry (which
never agreed with him) this convivial visit would almost certainly be
followed by a professional one. Miss Marty, having no signal for the
green-sealed Madeira, postponed explanation, and drew her blind
midway down the window. The Doctor did the same with his.
This signal and its answer invariably closed their correspondence;
but what it meant, what tender message it conveyed, remained an
uncommunicated secret. By it Miss Marty--but shall I reveal the
arcana of that virgin breast? Let us be content to know that
whatever it conveyed was, on her part, womanly; on his, gallant and
even dashing.
The Doctor lost no time in fetching his hat and gold-topped cane.
He knew the Major's brown sherry; it had twice made a voyage to the
West Indies. He hied him up the street with alacrity.
The Collector, though he had the worse of the start, was not slow.
He also had tasted the Major's brown sherry. He closed his ledgers,
locked his desk, caught up his hat, and was closing the Custom House
door behind him when, from the top of the Custom House steps, he saw
the Major's door open to admit Dr. Hansombody.
Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy and pursue in
imagination the pleasures of hope, attend to the story of Dr.
Hansombody, Mr.
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