“Yes, my lord,” said Saunders, monotonously.
“Perhaps he will me; that might amuse me,” said the other.
A moment later the doctor bowled into the apartment, tugging at his gloves, as he ran.
The contrast between him and our poor rich friend is almost beyond human language.
Here lay on a sofa Ipsden, one of the most distinguished young gentlemen in Europe; a creature incapable, by nature, of a rugged tone or a coarse gesture; a being without the slightest apparent pretension, but refined beyond the wildest dream of dandies. To him, enter Aberford, perspiring and shouting. He was one of those globules of human quicksilver one sees now and then for two seconds; they are, in fact, two globules; their head is one, invariably bald, round, and glittering; the body is another in activity and shape, totus teres atque rotundus; and in fifty years they live five centuries. Horum Rex Aberford—of these our doctor was the chief. He had hardly torn off one glove, and rolled as far as the third flower from the door on his lordship's carpet, before he shouted:
“This is my patient, lolloping in pursuit of health. Your hand,” added he. For he was at the sofa long before his lordship could glide off it.
“Tongue. Pulse is good. Breathe in my face.”
“Breathe in your face, sir! how can I do that?” (with an air of mild doubt.)
“By first inhaling, and then exhaling in the direction required, or how can I make acquaintance with your bowels?”
“My bowels?”