“It will be worse before it is better.”
“I don’t know what you mean, uncle; it is only numbed, ah! it hurts when I rub it.”
“It is worse than numbed, boy; it is broken.”
“Broken? nonsense:” and he looked at it in piteous bewilderment: “how can it be broken? it does not hurt except when I touch it.”
“It WILL hurt: I know all about it. I broke mine fifteen years ago: fell off a haystack.”
“Oh, how unfortunate I am!” cried Edouard, piteously. “But I will go to Beaurepaire all the same. I can have the thing mended there, as well as here.”
“You will go to bed,” said the old man, quietly; “that is where YOU’LL go.”
“I’ll go to blazes sooner,” yelled the young one.
The old man made a signal to his myrmidons, whom Marthe’s cries had brought around, and four stout fellows took hold of Edouard by the legs and the left shoulder and carried him up-stairs raging and kicking; and deposited him on a bed.
Presently he began to feel faint, and so more reasonable. They cut his coat off, and put him in a loose wrapper, and after considerable delay the surgeon came, and set his arm skilfully, and behold this ardent spirit caged. He chafed and fretted sadly. Fortitude was not his forte.