“Ah, why did you do it?” she repeated. And by that time they were in sight and earshot of the rest of the party.
“Hallo, Arthur! What’s up?” asked Mr Brathwaite, noticing his unwonted aspect.
“Nothing much; only a sting. Got any Croft’s Tincture?”
“Is it a snake?” inquired the old man, with more alarm in his voice than he intended to betray.
“No; a scorpion.”
The while Mr Brathwaite had been uncorking a small bottle. “Lucky I didn’t change my coat at the last moment this morning. I was as nearly as possible doing so, and this would have been left behind if I had, sure as fate. Now, let’s have a look at it.”
An infusion of the healing fluid was applied, and soon the sufferer began to feel perceptibly relieved. The throbbing became less violent, and, although much swollen already, the hand grew no larger. Old Garrett stood by, watching the doctoring process, lecturing the while, his theme the deterioration from its ancestry of the rising generation.
“There,” he was saying, “I’ll be bound that none of you young fellers ’ave any of that stuff with you—and what would you ’ave done without it? We old stagers is always ready for any emergence,” (his auditors presumed he meant emergency)—“always ready. All there, sir; all there?”
“Have you got any of it yourself?” asked the patient, catting him short.
“’Ave I? Well, let’s see. No, I ’aven’t to-day, but I generally ’ave.”