"
He was very anxious to know Isaac Irvine, and when I brought the
bee-master to see him, they seemed to hold friendly converse with their
looks even before either of them spoke. It was a bad day with Charlie,
but he set his lips against the pain, and raised himself on one arm to
stare out of his big brown eyes at the old man, who met them with as
steady a gaze out of his. Then Charlie lowered himself again, and said
in a tone of voice by which I knew he was pleased, "I'm so glad you've
come to see me, old Isaac. It's very kind of you. Jack says you know a
lot about live things, and that you like the numbers we like in the
_Penny Cyclopaedia_. I wanted to see you, for I think you and I are much
in the same boat; you're old, and I'm crippled, and we're both too poor
to travel. But Jack's to go, and when he's gone, you and I'll follow him
on the map."
"GOD willing, sir," said the bee-master; and when he said that, I knew
how sorry he felt for poor Charlie, for when he was moved he always said
very short things, and generally something religious.
And for all Charlie's whims and fancies, and in all his pain and
fretfulness, and through fits of silence and sensitiveness, he had never
a better friend than Isaac Irvine.
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