"Oh, I am getting on very well, Denis. My arm hardly hurts me at all at present. I expect it will ache worse presently."
"I have been having a few minutes' sleep your honor. And now, if you don't want me for a minute, I will run down and see about breakfast. I should think it must be nearly ready."
"See about dinner, you mean, Denis. Why, it's just one o'clock."
"One o'clock! Your honor must be dreaming."
"I don't think so, Denis. There is my watch on the table."
"Why, your honor does not mean to say," Denis said in great astonishment, "that I have been sleeping for five hours? The watch must have gone wrong."
"The watch is right enough, Denis. I heard it strike twelve by the church clocks before I dozed off last time. Why, the surgeons came in at ten o'clock and gave me some lemonade."
"And me to know nothing about it! Denis Mulligan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself—slaping like a pig in a stye, with your master laying wounded there beside you, and no one to look after him. I just laid down for five minutes' nap, your honor, seeing that you had gone off into a beautiful sleep, and never dreamed of more than that."
"It was the best thing you could do, Denis. You had been twenty-four hours on your feet, and you would have been fit for nothing if you hadn't had a good rest. Now go downstairs and get your dinner, and when you come back again you can bring me up a basin of broth and a piece of bread. I begin to feel hungry; and that's a capital sign, I believe."
When Ralph had finished his broth he said to Denis, "I shan't want anything now for some time, Denis. You can put a glass of lemonade within reach of my hand, and then I shall do very well for an hour or two. I am quite sure you must be dying for a pipe; so go out and take a turn. It will freshen you up; and you can bring me back what news you can gather as to the losses yesterday, and whether the army started in pursuit of the French."