‘Have you any money, Mr. Armstrong?’ said the landlady, ‘or shall I write to your friends?’
‘There’s fifty-one pounds in my dressing-bag,’ croaked Paul. ‘When you’ve buried me and paid your bill, send the balance to my father.’
‘Buried you?’ said the doctor. ‘You don’t suppose you’re going to peg out, do you?’
‘I hope so,’ said Paul.
‘Oh,’ said the doctor, casting a shrewd, good-humoured eye at him, ‘you feel like that, do you? But you’ve got me to reckon with, and the British Pharmacopoeia. When did you eat last?
‘Day before yesterday.’
‘All right, young man; I’ll fettle you, and if you think you’re going to slip your cable, you’re mightily in error.’
‘Well,’ said Paul, ‘it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.’
The time went on, and a day later he was light-headed, and babbled, as he learned afterwards, of Claudia. Sometimes he upbraided her savagely, and sometimes he made tragic love to her. He had intervals of complete sanity, in which the thought of her was like an inward fire; then he had a five weeks’ spell of madness, and awoke from it free from pain, but a mere crate of bones which felt heavier than lead. He remembered some of his own delusions clearly, but lost count of whole weeks of time, and had yet to learn how long he had lain there. When he awoke he knew that somebody was in the room, and made an effort to turn his head. That failed, but the somebody heard the faint rustle he made, and the first face his eyes looked at was the face of Darco.
‘Ah!’ said Darco, ‘you haf got your prains pack again. You know me, eh?’