I stared, not well knowing what to make of his manner.
"Look here," he went on after awhile, "you're thinking that you've lost your character. Very well; any bones broken?"
"My collar-bone, I think."
"Which, at your age, will heal in no time. Anything else?"
"A twist of the hip, here, and a cut in the head, I believe."
"Tut, tut! Good appetite?"
He had approached, unwound his enormous woollen comforter, and was beginning to bandage me with it, by no means unskilfully. I thought his question a mad one, and no doubt my face, as he peered into it, told him so.
"I mean," he explained, "will you ever be able to eat a beef-steak again— say, a trifle underdone, with a dozen of oysters for prelude—and drink beer, d'ye think, and enjoy them both?"
"No doubt."
"And kiss a pretty girl, and be glad to do it?"