“My dear Joe,” said the doctor, “once for all I protest against that despondent manner of speaking. ‘My poor father!’ How do you know he is poor? Bah! lad: you’re a bit down, and I shall give you a little quinine. To-morrow you will rest all day.”
“And then?” I said excitedly.
“Then,” he said thoughtfully—“then? Why, then we’ll have a fishing or a shooting trip for a change, to do us both good, and we’ll take Jack Penny and Jimmy with us.”
“Let’s do that to-morrow, doctor,” I said, “instead of my lying here in camp.”
“Will you take your quinine, then, like a good boy?” he said laughingly.
“That I will, doctor—a double dose,” I exclaimed. “A double dose you shall take, Joe, my lad,” he said; and to my horror he drew a little flat silver case out of his pocket, measured out a little light white powder on the blade of a knife into our pannikin, squeezed into it a few drops of the juice of a lemon-like fruit of which we had a pretty good number every day, filled up with water, and held it for me to drink.
“Oh, I say, doctor!” I exclaimed, “I did not think I should be brought out here in the wilderness to be physicked.”
“Lucky fellow to have a medical man always at your side,” he replied. “There, sip it up. No faces. Pish! it wasn’t nasty, was it?”
“Ugh! how bitter!” I cried with a shudder.
“Bitter? Well, yes; but how sweet to know that you have had a dose of the greatest medicine ever discovered. There, now, lie down on the blanket near the fire here, never mind being a little warm, and go to sleep.”