"
"But they don't. Friends should help one another and think it a
privilege."
"Oh, I shouldn't mind coming to you for help, knowing you as I do. But
no one can help a poor devil in a case like this--and certainly not a
medical jurist."
"Oh, come, Berkeley!" he protested, "don't rate us too low. The humblest
of creatures has its uses--'even the little pismire,' you know, as Isaak
Walton tells us. Why, I have got substantial help from a
stamp-collector. And then reflect upon the motor-scorcher and the
earthworm and the blow-fly. All these lowly creatures play their parts
in the scheme of Nature; and shall we cast out the medical jurist as
nothing worth?"
I laughed dejectedly at my teacher's genial irony.
"What I meant," said I, "was that there is nothing to be done but
wait--perhaps for ever. I don't know why she isn't able to marry me, and
I mustn't ask her. She can't be married already."
"Certainly not. She told you explicitly that there was no man in the
case."
"Exactly. And I can think of no other valid reason, excepting that she
doesn't care enough for me.
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