"It's a wonder to me," he growled to Dr. Mangan, after Sister Maria Joseph had left the room, having taken, in her anxiety to show respect, quite half a minute in closing the door with suitable noiselessness, "why people can't attend to what's said to them! If there's a thing I hate, it's being bothered repeating an entirely trivial matter, which——"—here Father Tim's voice began to take on the angry, high tenor of one of his prototypes—"she had a right to have heard at the first offer! I declare I'm beside meself sometimes with the annoyance I get!"
Dr. Mangan laid his spatulate fingers upon the sufferer's hairy wrist.
"We'll have to give his Reverence a sedative, Danny," he said, winking at his colleague. "I'd be sorry to see you that way, Father; the bed's narrow enough for you as it is, without having you beside yourself in it!"
Father Sweeny's mood was one to which chaff did not commend itself. He snatched his hand from beneath the Doctor's fingers, and picked up some letters that lay beside him.
"Look at this, I ask you! From Mary Murphy, saying her husband is quite well, and that he took the turn for good from the minute he was anointed! And me lying here crippled!"
"'The dog it was that died!'" quoted Dr. Mangan, smoothly.
"What dog?" demanded Father Sweeny, with indignation, "I d'no what you're talking about!"
"Ah, nothing, nothing," said the Big Doctor, with a lift of the spirit at the thought of his superior culture, "but surely it wasn't to show me Mary Murphy's letter that you sent poor Sister Maria Joseph on a fool's errand?"
"Why a fool's errand?" demanded the now incensed Father Sweeny. "What d'ye mean?"
"Look at the newspaper on the floor here," returned the Doctor. "You'll have her back in a minute, begging your pardon again, to tell you so."