I should have liked to say something more--something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well, and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.
"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it.

I don't suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell before departing to my long home.

I am not in such a hurry to depart as all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done--that I want you to do for me.

I meant to have done it myself, but I am down now, and I must trust somebody.

I know better than to trust a clever man.