“Tell Mister Bob—Mr. O'Reilly I mean—to come to me,” were the first words of old Dr. Hickman, as he awoke on the following morning.
“Well, sir, how have you slept?” said his son, approaching the bedside, and taking a chair; “have you rested well?”
“Middling,-only middling, Bob. The place is like a vault, and the rats have it all their own way. They were capering about the whole night, and made such a noise trying to steal off with one of my shoes.” “Did they venture that far?”
“Ay, did they! but I couldn't let it go with them. I know you 're in a hurry to stand in them yourself, Bob, and leave me and the rats to settle it between us—ay!” “Really, sir, these are jests—-”
“Too like earnest to be funny, Bob; so I feel them myself. Ugh! ugh! The damp of this place is freezing the very heart's blood of me. How is Nalty this morning?” “Like a fellow taken off a wreck, sir, after a week's starvation. He is sitting at the fire there, with two blankets round him, and vows to heaven, every five minutes, that if he was once back in Old Dominick Street, a thousand guineas would n't tempt him to such another expedition.”
The old doctor laughed till it made him cough, and when the fit was over, laughed again, wiping his weeping eyes, and chuckling in the most unearthly glee at the lawyer's discomfiture.
“Wrapped up in blankets, eh, Bob?” said he, that he might hear further of his fellow-traveller's misery.
O'Reilly saw that he had touched the right key, and expatiated for some minutes upon Nalty's sufferings, throwing out, from time to time, adroit hints that only certain strong and hale constitutions could endure privations like these. “Now, you, sir,” continued he, “you look as much yourself as ever; in fact, I half doubt how you are to play the sick man, with all these signs of rude health about you.”
“Leave that to me, Bob; I think I've seen enough of them things to know them now. When I 've carried my point, and all's safe and secure, you 'll see me like the pope we read of, that looked all but dead till they elected him, and then stood up stout and hearty five minutes after,—we 'll have a miracle of this kind in our own family.”
“I suspect, sir, we shall have difficulty in obtaining an interview,” said O'Reilly.