“Come on!” cried Geoffrey.  “Back the doctor, one of you!”

Sir Patrick rose in undisguised disgust, and followed the surgeon.  One, Two, and Three, invited to business by their illustrious friend, shook their thick heads at him knowingly, and answered with one accord, in one eloquent word—­“Gammon!”

“One of you back him!” persisted Geoffrey, appealing to the two choral gentlemen in the back-ground, with his temper fast rising to fever heat.  The two choral gentlemen compared notes, as usual.  “We weren’t born yesterday, Smith?” “Not if we know it, Jones.”

“Smith!” said Geoffrey, with a sudden assumption of politeness ominous of something unpleasant to come.

Smith said “Yes?”—­with a smile.

“Jones!”

Jones said “Yes?”—­with a reflection of Smith.

“You’re a couple of infernal cads—­and you haven’t got a hundred pound between you!”

“Come! come!” said Arnold, interfering for the first time.  “This is shameful, Geoffrey!”

“Why the”—­(never mind what!)—­“won’t they any of them take the bet?”

“If you must be a fool,” returned Arnold, a little irritably on his side, “and if nothing else will keep you quiet, I’ll take the bet.”

“An even hundred on the doctor!” cried Geoffrey.  “Done with you!”

His highest aspirations were satisfied; his temper was in perfect order again.  He entered the bet in his book; and made his excuses to Smith and Jones in the heartiest way.  “No offense, old chaps!  Shake hands!” The two choral gentlemen were enchanted with him.  “The English aristocracy—­eh, Smith?” “Blood and breeding—­ah, Jones!”

As soon as he had spoken, Arnold’s conscience reproached him:  not for betting (who is ashamed of that form of gambling in England?) but for “backing the doctor.”  With the best intention toward his friend, he was speculating on the failure of his friend’s health.  He anxiously assured Geoffrey that no man in the room could be more heartily persuaded that the surgeon was wrong than himself.  “I don’t cry off from the bet,” he said.  “But, my dear fellow, pray understand that I only take it to please you.”

“Bother all that!” answered Geoffrey, with the steady eye to business, which was one of the choicest virtues in his character.  “A bet’s a bet—­and hang your sentiment!” He drew Arnold by the arm out of ear-shot of the others.  “I say!” he asked, anxiously.  “Do you think I’ve set the old fogy’s back up?”

“Do you mean Sir Patrick?”

Geoffrey nodded, and went on.

“I haven’t put that little matter to him yet—­about marrying in Scotland, you know.  Suppose he cuts up rough with me if I try him now?” His eye wandered cunningly, as he put the question, to the farther end of the room.  The surgeon was looking over a port-folio of prints.  The ladies were still at work on their notes of invitation.  Sir Patrick was alone at the book-shelves immersed in a volume which he had just taken down.