"Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight nervous affection—will pass as the digestion improves. I will make you up a set of pills for the night; but I should advise a little ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?"
"Sir! you mistake me, sir!"
"Not in the least; you have brought me a challenge from Mr. Trebooze."
"I have, sir!" said the youth with a grand air, at once relieved by having the awful words said for him, and exalted by the dignity of his first, and perhaps last, employment in that line.
"Well, sir," said Tom deliberately, "Mr. Trebooze does me a kindness for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you also, as his second. It is full six months since I fought, and I was getting hardly to know myself again."
"You will have to fight now, sir!" said the youth, trying to brazen off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had "caught a Tartar."
"Of course, of course. And of course, too, I fight you afterwards."
"I—I, sir? I am Mr. Trebooze's friend, his second, sir. You do not seem to understand, sir!"
"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Tom, in a very quiet, determined voice; "it is I who have a right to tell you that you do not understand in such matters as these. I had fought my man, and more than one of them, while you were eating blackberries in a short jacket."
"What do you mean, sir?" quoth the youth in fury; and began swearing a little.