Poor devil, how could I be angry when I saw him lying in such a plight before me?
“It’s for your own sake, Watson,” he croaked.
“For my sake?”
“I know what is the matter with me. It is a coolie disease from Sumatra—a thing that the Dutch know more about than we, though they have made little of it up to date. One thing only is certain. It is infallibly deadly, and it is horribly contagious.”
He spoke now with a feverish energy, the long hands twitching and jerking as he motioned me away.
“Contagious by touch, Watson—that’s it, by touch. Keep your distance and all is well.”
“Good heavens, Holmes! Do you suppose that such a consideration weighs with me of an instant? It would not affect me in the case of a stranger. Do you imagine it would prevent me from doing my duty to so old a friend?”
Again I advanced, but he repulsed me with a look of furious anger.
“If you will stand there I will talk. If you do not you must leave the room.”
I have so deep a respect for the extraordinary qualities of Holmes that I have always deferred to his wishes, even when I least understood them. But now all my professional instincts were aroused. Let him be my master elsewhere, I at least was his in a sick room.