"My life is all behind me, unfortunately, Doctor," he said. "At least the best opportunities of it are, and they lie among tares—lost in a rank growth of wild oats. It is all very well to say that every man must plant that crop—but I realize when too late that I must reap the harvest as well; and it has filled my store-house so full, there is no room for one golden sheaf of wheat."
"Might thresh your wheat then, in the stack, and sell it without storing it," suggested the old doctor, facetiously, as he held Percy's pulse between his thumb and finger. "Fall wheat brings good prices now. H'm! pretty high fever—how's your tongue?"
"Pretty sick, pretty sick, my boy!" he said, as he finished his examination. "Liver in an awful state. That's what makes you want to die, and all that. A diseased liver and melancholy views of life are as natural companions as a boy and a piece of string. If you don't object, I'll call counsel?"
Percy looked up quickly.
"Then I am in danger?"
"Possibly, not positively. I see indications that lead me to think an abcess is forming on your liver. But I am not sure of it."
"In case there is?"
"In case there is, you will have to submit to an operation."
"And such operations are often fatal, are they not, in their results? Frequently so."
Dr. Sydney hesitated.