"Oh, thank you, kindly; you have surely had enough trouble on my account already."
"Not a particle—only a pleasure, miss; but the push I got from your pursuer upset me on the pavement and made sparks fly out of my eyes, and, before I could gather myself up, they were back again in the carriage and off. You will have to give me the mans name, miss—you will, indeed, on my own account, when all your fatigue and fright are over. Such favors are generally returned by me with compound interest."
"Oh, be thankful you have not a compound fracture, Mr. Burress, and let the fellow go. He is beneath contempt. But I shall not be satisfied until Dr. Pemberton tells me himself that you are uninjured."
"A lump as big as a potato—that's all, miss; not worth minding, I assure you;" and he raised his hand to his occipital region. "An application, before retiring to bed, of 'Prang's Blood and Life Regenerator,' will make all right again. An astonishing remedy, miss, which no family should be without, and which may be obtained cheaply by the gross or dozen at my emporium. You have heard of Hercules Prang?"
These were the last words I heard distinctly from the lips of Napoleon B. Burress; nor were they answered, even by the brief "Never" which might have proclaimed my ignorance of the very existence of that demi-god of charlatanry, who, for the benefit of suffering mankind, had condescended to compel his genius into the shape of a "revivifying balsam."
I had, with the aid of the house-maid, divested myself of my wet overshoes and wrappings before the advent of my companion, and had already ensconced myself in a deep Spanish chair, that stood invitingly and with extended arms in one corner of the fireplace, when he advanced to place himself on the rug for a general roasting.
It was precisely twenty minutes past ten, Mr. Burress told me later, when he detected, by stealing on tiptoe to my chair, and bending above me, that I was sound asleep, and the mantel clock was on the stroke of eleven when I awoke.
In one corner of the room sat a stern statue of Silence, in the shape of N.B. Burress, watching my repose, and from the adjoining office came the murmur of voices that proved that the long interview between Dr. Pemberton and his patient was still in progress.
At this moment, one of the walnut-leaves of the small folding-door, that formed a communication between the study and office of the good physician, swung itself gently on its noiseless hinges, into the position distinguished in description as "slightly ajar," and thus remained fixed, after a fashion that spiritual mediums might have been able to account for, on supernatural principles.
The low murmur of voices then readily resolved itself into shaped words and sentences, and, but for my deep languor, and the delightful sense of security that possessed me, I should have risen and closed the obliging door, to shut out unintentional communications.