“Doctor,” I said, surprised and angry at what seemed horrible cruelty.
“Give him some more?” he said laughing. “Of course I will,” and he tried to reach round me, but I caught hold of the cane, and Jimmy took advantage of the cessation of hostilities for a moment to run for some distance and then climb up a tree, in one of the higher branches of which he settled himself like a monkey, and sat rubbing himself and looking down at the danger from which he had escaped.
“There, Joe,” said the doctor, laughing; “it has made me hot. That’s as good a cure as the Queen’s physician could have made.”
“How could you be so brutal to the poor wretch?” I said indignantly.
“Brutal! Ha! ha! ha! My indignant young hero!” he cried. “Here are you going to take up the cudgels in the rascal’s behalf. Don’t you see there was nothing the matter with the artful black ruffian.”
“Nothing the matter!” I said. “Why, wasn’t he dangerously ill?”
“Dangerously full,” said the doctor, clapping me on the shoulder. “I was obliged to give him a lesson, Joe, and it will do him good for all our trip. I suspected the rascal from the very first, but I have studied medicine long enough to know how easy it is to be deceived by appearances; so I gave Master Jimmy the benefit of the doubt, and treated him as if he was really very ill, till I had made assurance doubly sure, and then I thrashed him.”
“What! do you really mean, doctor—” I began.
“It could not very well have happened with an Englishman, Joe. With Master Jimmy there, it was different.”
“But was he not very ill?”