"I think I could if tried, sir," George said, "but I shouldn't like to try, for if I move my fingers at all it hurts them awfully."
"I see you have had oil and cotton-wool on your hands."
"Yes."
"The best thing you can do, boys, is to put on some soothing poultices. Tell your mother to get some linseed and mix it with olive-oil. I will give you a bottle of laudanum. Let her put about twenty drops of that into the oil before she mixes it with the linseed. Every four or five hours change the poultices. I think you will find that will relieve the pain a good deal. I see your faces are scorched too. You can do nothing better than keep them moistened with sweet-oil. I should advise you to keep as quiet as possible for three or four days."
"But we shall want to get to work, sir," George said.
"Nonsense! You will be very lucky if you can use your hands in another fortnight. I will send in the usual certificate to the works."
"Will you tell the foreman, Bob," George said when they left the doctor's, "how it is we can't come to work? You tell him we wanted to, and that we hope to come back as soon as our hands are all right; because, you see, the men and boys at the shops which have been burnt down will be all out of work, and it would be awful if we found our places filled up when we went to work again."
"Don't you be afraid, George; there is no fear of your being out of work after what you have done."
"Well, what did the doctor say?" was Mrs. Andrews' first question when they returned home.
"He didn't say much, mother, except that we must not think of going to work for a fortnight anyhow, and we are to have poultices made with linseed mixed with oil, and twenty drops of laudanum from this bottle, and it must be put on fresh every three or four hours. I am afraid it will be an awful trouble."