Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle | Page 6

raise my eyes.
Directly before me was one of the mirrors I have mentioned, in which I

saw reflected the tall shape of my friend, Mr. Jennings, leaning over my
shoulder, and reading the page at which I was busy, and with a face so
dark and wild that I should hardly have known him.
I turned and rose. He stood erect also, and with an effort laughed a little,
saying:
"I came in and asked you how you did, but without succeeding in
awaking you from your book; so I could not restrain my curiosity, and
very impertinently, I'm afraid, peeped over your shoulder. This is not
your first time of looking into those pages. You have looked into
Swedenborg, no doubt, long ago?"
"Oh dear, yes! I owe Swedenborg a great deal; you will discover traces
of him in the little book on Metaphysical Medicine, which you were so
good as to remember."
Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner, there was a slight
flush in his face, and I could perceive that he was inwardly much
perturbed.
"I'm scarcely yet qualified, I know so little of Swedenborg. I've only
had them a fortnight," he answered, "and I think they are rather likely
to make a solitary man nervous--that is, judging from the very little I
have read--I don't say that they have made me so," he laughed; "and I'm
so very much obliged for the book. I hope you got my note?"
I made all proper acknowledgments and modest disclaimers.
"I never read a book that I go with, so entirely, as that of yours," he
continued. "I saw at once there is more in it than is quite unfolded. Do
you know Dr. Harley?" he asked, rather abruptly.
In passing, the editor remarks that the physician here named was one of
the most eminent who had ever practised in England.
I did, having had letters to him, and had experienced from him great
courtesy and considerable assistance during my visit to England.

"I think that man one of the very greatest fools I ever met in my life,"
said Mr. Jennings.
This was the first time I had ever heard him say a sharp thing of
anybody, and such a term applied to so high a name a little startled me.
"Really! and in what way?" I asked.
"In his profession," he answered.
I smiled.
"I mean this," he said: "he seems to me, one half, blind--I mean one
half of all he looks at is dark--preternaturally bright and vivid all the
rest; and the worst of it is, it seems wilful. I can't get him--I mean he
won't--I've had some experience of him as a physician, but I look on
him as, in that sense, no better than a paralytic mind, an intellect half
dead. I'll tell you--I know I shall some time--all about it," he said, with
a little agitation. "You stay some months longer in England. If I should
be out of town during your stay for a little time, would you allow me to
trouble you with a letter?"
"I should be only too happy," I assured him.
"Very good of you. I am so utterly dissatisfied with Harley."
"A little leaning to the materialistic school," I said.
"A mere materialist," he corrected me; "you can't think how that sort of
thing worries one who knows better. You won't tell any one--any of my
friends you know--that I am hippish; now, for instance, no one
knows--not even Lady Mary--that I have seen Dr. Harley, or any other
doctor. So pray don't mention it; and, if I should have any threatening
of an attack, you'll kindly let me write, or, should I be in town, have a
little talk with you."
I was full of conjecture, and unconsciously I found I had fixed my eyes
gravely on him, for he lowered his for a moment, and he said:

"I see you think I might as well tell you now, or else you are forming a
conjecture; but you may as well give it up. If you were guessing all the
rest of your life, you will never hit on it."
He shook his head smiling, and over that wintry sunshine a black cloud
suddenly came down, and he drew his breath in, through his teeth as
men do in pain.
"Sorry, of course, to learn that you apprehend occasion to consult any
of us; but, command me when and how you like, and I need not assure
you that your confidence is sacred."
He then talked of quite other things, and in a comparatively cheerful
way and after a little time, I took my leave.
CHAPTER V
Dr. Hesselius is Summoned to Richmond
We parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor was I. There