It had the exactness of one who
was set upon a far course and would carry it out on scientific
calculation. He had been full of mocking quips and sallies at himself,
but from first to last he never talked. The things he said were nothing
more than surface sounds, as it were--the ejaculations of a mind, not its
language or its meanings.
"He's had some strange history, this queer little man," said the
housekeeper to the Young Doctor; "and I'd like to know what it is. Why,
we don't even know his name."
"So would I," rejoined the Young Doctor, "and I'll have a good try for
it."
He had had his try more than once, but it had not succeeded. Perhaps a
little torture would do it, he thought; and so he had made the rather
tactless remark about the scarcity of dollars. Also his look was
incredulous when Jean Jacques protested that he had enough to pay the
fee.
"When you searched me you forgot to look in the right place," continued
Jean Jacques; and he drew from the lining of the hat he held in his hand
a little bundle of ten-dollar bills. "Here--take your pay from them," he
said, and held out the roll of bills. "I suppose it won't be more than
four dollars a day; and there's enough, I think. I can't pay you for your
kindness to me, and I don't want to. I'd like to owe you that; and it's a
good thing for a man himself to be owed kindness.
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