Hansombody during the last year or two had gradually withdrawn
himself from professional cares, relinquishing them to his young and
energetic assistant, Mr. Olver. Magisterial and other public
business claimed more and more of the time he more and more
grudgingly spared from domestic felicity and the business of
rearranging his entomological cabinet. He had found himself, early
in his third term of mayoral office, the father of a bouncing boy.
A silver cradle, the gift of the borough, decorated his sideboard.
As for the moths and butterflies, he designed to bequeath them, under
the title of "The Hansombody Collection," to the town. They would
find a last resting-place in the Hymen Museum, and so his name would
go down to posterity linked with that of his distinguished friend.
This was the first visit he had paid to the stranger's bedside; and
even now he had only stepped in, at his assistant's request, from the
next room, where for half an hour he had been engaged with Cai
Tamblyn in choosing a position for the first case of butterflies.
"Wants to get up, does he?" asked the Doctor absently, after a
perfunctory look at the patient. "Restless, eh?" He still carried in
his hand the two-foot rule with which he had been taking
measurements. "You've tried a change of diet?"
"I fancy," Mr. Olver suggested, "he is worried by the number of
visitors--ladies especially."
"Georgiana Pescod has been worrying?"
The patient lifted his right hand from the bed and spread out all its
fingers; lifted his left, and spread out three more.
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