"Never mind what he hath given him," interrupted the doctor, holding up his hand in warning, "go on with it, and tell the baboo-sahib to come to me for orders--at once. Now then, sir, that's all--and a bit too much too--" he added in a lower voice, as they passed out together, "for it's a case of cholera."
The Commissioner looked grave. "That will complicate matters, won't it?"
"Can't say. You never can tell. They may take it as a dispensation, or there may never be another case. That fellow's done for, anyhow--he'll be dead in an hour."
"That's quick, isn't it?" asked his companion, calmly.
"Rather. I've seen a man go out in ten minutes, though. The worst of it is," he added, with a frown, "if there really is some conspiracy at the bottom of the discontent, it is as likely as not the devils who are working it, may take advantage of this--I don't mean of this death--that goes without saying. But when cholera is about, poison is hard to detect, and even if I stamp out the disease, which I mean to do, they may simulate it." He bit at his thumbnail viciously as he strode on, thinking and muttering. "By God!" he murmured, "if I could catch 'em at it! However," he added aloud, "it's no good fussing. If the thing comes, it comes, and I've kept you here too long as it is, sir. Do you know it's close on half-past ten?"
"Be jabers!" exclaimed the Commissioner, "only twenty minutes to bathe, shave, breakfast, and put on me gold lace continuations. Well, ta, ta! I'll see you at the show, of course."
Dr. Dillon looked puzzled for an instant; the puzzledom of a man whose thoughts are recalled from afar. "The show? Oh, yes! I was forgetting. Rather, sir. Why! it is as much my canal as Smith's, for we've done every inch of it together; besides, I have got to drive his wife down."
"Where the deuce is Dering?" asked the Commissioner, quite ingenuously; but George Dillon flushed up. It was visible even under his leather-like tan.
"I really can't say, sir; otherwise engaged, I presume."
His elder turned to him, surprised, yet with instant apology. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't have said it; but I really meant nothing."