He was not in the least affected by the opinions of his neighbours; he chewed his tobacco and drank his grog, and, in the words of the old song, ‘He cared for nobody, no, not he!’ Well had my poor father said, that I didn’t take his part nobody else would. And shall I tell you a secret? Though I strictly carried out my father’s wishes, and though Septimus was disposed in his own rough way to be grateful to me, I didn’t like him either.
So I went to the room over the stables (we were in London at the time) with dry eyes and I sat down by his bed and cut up a cake of tobacco for him, and said, ‘Well, what’s the matter?’ as coolly as if he had sent me word that he thought he had caught a cold in the head. ‘I’m called away.’ Septimus answered, ‘and before I go I’ve got a confession to make, and something useful to offer you.
It’s reported among the servants, Mr Alfred, that you’re in trouble just now between two ladies. You may see your way clear in that matter, sir, if death spares me long enough to say a few last words.’
‘Never mind me, Septimus. Has a doctor seen you?’
‘The doctor knows no more about me than I know myself. The doctor be --!’
‘Have you any last wishes I can attend to?’
‘None, sir.’
‘Shall I send for a clergyman?’
Septimus Notman looked at me as directly as he could—he was afflicted with a terrible squint. Otherwise he was a fine, stoutly-built man, with a ruddy face profusely encircled by white hair and whiskers, a hoarse, heavy voice, and the biggest hands I ever saw. He put one of these enormous hands under his pillow before he answered me.
‘If you think,’ he said, ‘that a clergyman will come to a man who has got the Devil’s Spectacles here, under his pillow, and who has only to put those Spectacles on to see through that clergyman’s clothes, flesh, and what not, and read everything that’s written in his secret mind as plain as print, fetch him, Master Alfred—fetch him!’
I thought the clergyman might not like this, and withdrew my suggestion accordingly. The least I could do, as a matter of common politeness, after giving up the clergyman, was to ask if I might look at the Devil’s Spectacles.
‘Hear
