'Them chaps always recover,' drawled out the Doctor in a dolorous cadence.
'Is it true,' said the Major, with a malicious grin—'is it true that he changed all the splints and bandages to the sound leg, and that you didn't discover the mistake for a week afterwards? Mary Doolan told me.'
'Mrs. Doolan,' said the Doctor, 'ought to be thinking of her own misfortunes; and with an acute inflammation of the pericardium, she might be making her sowl.'
'She ill?—that fine, fat, comfortable-looking woman!'
'Ay, just so; they're always fat, and have a sleepy look about the eyes, just like yourself. Do you ever bleed at the nose?'
'Never without a blow on it. Come, come, I know you well, Doctor; you shall not terrify me.'
'You're right not to fret; for it will take you off suddenly, with a giddiness in your head, and a rolling in your eyes, and a choking feeling about your throat——'
'Stop, and be d——d to you!' said the Major, as he cleared his voice a couple of times, and loosed the tie of his cravat. 'This room is oppressively hot.'
'I protest to God,' said Father Tom, 'my heart is in my mouth, and there isn't a bone in my body that's not aching.'
'I don't wonder,' chimed in the Doctor; 'you are another of them, and you are a surprising man to go on so long. Sure, it is two years ago I warned your niece that when she saw you fall down she must open a vein in your neck, if it was only with a carving-knife.'