"A thorn?" The Doctor seized the professional opportunity, lifted her bodily off the slope, and lowered her to the beach. "There, now, if you will sit absolutely still… for one minute. I command you! Yes, as I suspected—a gorse-prickle!"
He ran to his haversack, and, returning with a pair of tweezers, took the hurt foot between both hands.
"Pray remain still… for one moment. There—it is out!" He held up the prickle triumphantly between the tweezers. "You have heard, Miss Marty, of the slave Andrew Something-or-other and the lion? Though it couldn't have been Andrew really, because there are no lions in Scotland—except, I believe, on their shield. He was hiding for some reason in a cave, and a lion came along, and—well, it doesn't seem complimentary even if you turn a lion into a lioness, but it came into my head and seemed all right to start with."
"When I was a governess," said Miss Marty, "I used often to set it for dictation. I had, I remember, the same difficulty you experience with the name of the hero."
"Did you?" the Doctor exclaimed, delightedly. "That is a coincidence, isn't it? I sometimes think that when two minds are, as one might say, attuned—"
"They are making a most dreadful noise," said Miss Marty, with a glance across the river. "Did I hear you say that you were victorious to-night?"
"Completely."
"The Major is a wonderful man."
"Wonderful! As I was saying, when two minds are, as one might say, attuned—"
"He succeeds in everything he touches."