Constable Marks took out his watch.
“Good-mornin’, Hi should say.” Without undue haste he put his watch away, touched his hat, first to one, then to the other, and moved off along the verandah.
“Thank heaven he’s gone! Oh Vagabond, I wish the doctor would come! If only Blake were here to help you to bed.”
The vagabond was on his feet, rocking in a gale of laughter which only main force had silenced until the constable’s exit.
“I’m not going to bed! For a bit of a scratch like this? Never. Besides, I might miss something. Oh, human nature! How rich it is, how glorious!”
“Oh! don’t laugh like that. It exerts you too much. You must be so weak.” She tried to induce him to sit down again among the pillows of the armchair.
“I’m not weak!”—he denied the charge as if it affronted him—“only perishing for a drink of water.”
“There is ice-water in the cooler on the dining-room table. I’ll bring you a glass.” She was flitting away to get it, but he intercepted her.
“Indeed, you shall not! You must not wait on me any more. I’m neither a cripple—nor royalty. Oh, by the way”—he closed the dining room door again and came back to her—“Who is Blake? You mentioned a Blake just now.”
“He’s the coachman. Why?”