Dr. Paull's Theory: A Romance

								

His brother, Mr. Edmund Pym, came into the ward with the secretary of
the hospital.
Edmund Pym was a short, wizened little man, with pinched features and
blinking eyes, scant white hair and smooth shaven face. Greater
opposites in personal appearance than these two brothers could hardly
be.
He glanced at Hugh through his eye-glass, nodded, somewhat awkwardly
asked the invalid how he was getting on, then stood fidgeting at the
bedside.
Hugh offered him a chair, but Sir Roderick gave him such a look that he
would have retired precipitately but for his patient’s apologetic—
“Pray don’t go, Mr. Paull, I want to speak to you. My brother cannot
stay long.”
“No, I cannot stay long,” said Mr. Edmund, uncomfortably. “I only came
in to see how you were getting on, and to tell you how sorry Mary and
the girls are about this. Mary will come and see you, if you like?”
“But I don’t like,” interrupted Sir Roderick, pettishly. “Tell
her—anything you please. I don’t mind Mary and the girls when I am well.
But they can’t come here. If they do, I sha’n’t see them.”
Mr. Pym nervously assured his brother that “Mary and the girls” would
not dream of doing anything to displease him. They were most anxious to
show their solicitude and sympathy, that was all.
“Tell them that as long as they hold their tongues and don’t gossip
about my infernal accident, they may do what they please,” said Sir
Roderick, surlily. “And if they must chatter about it, tell them to pray
for me. Yes, tell them that. They’ll think the black sheep is coming
into the fold at last. It’ll please them, and won’t do me any harm.”
Mr. Edmund Pym was evidently embarrassed, and did not stay long. Hugh
pitied him, and accompanying him to the end of the ward apologised for
the irascibility of the patient, which was not only natural after the
shock, but was, if anything, a favorable symptom, &c.
“Oh! I am accustomed to my brother, Mr. Paull,” he said, with a
gentleness that touched the young house-surgeon. “He is naturally
irritable. We take it for what it is worth. He has had a great deal of
trouble in his life, and it has soured him. And he is quite a recluse.
But he has a good heart, a wonderfully kind heart.”
Then he thanked Hugh for his attention to the patient and hurried off,
evidently relieved that the visit was over.
“H’m!” muttered Hugh to himself, as he slowly returned to the patient.
“H’m! It strikes me that my pessimistic friend is, like most pessimists,
a bit of a Tartar.”
Sir Roderick welcomed him with a forced smile.
“I daresay you think me ungracious?” he said, his long, withered hand
nervously fingering the bedclothes. “I’m not—at least, not exactly. I
can put up with my brother when I’m well, but just now I can’t. The fact
is, he is one of the most woman-ridden men on the face of the earth. His
wife is a bigot and a snob, and brings up her daughters bigots and