“You won’t hurt, sir,” said Smith, with rough sympathy, as he took up the bandage and examined the injured arm by the light of the lamp. “But he can. All very fine for him to say that, after ramming in a couple o’ pellets just as if he was loading an elder-wood pop-gun. Look here, sir, shall I take ’em out again?”
“No, no,” said Oliver, trying hard to bear the acute pain he suffered, patiently.
“But they must hurt you ’orrid, and he won’t know when the bandage is on.”
“Tie up my arm, man,” said Oliver, shortly. “It is quite right. That’s better—Tighter.—No, no, I can’t bear it. Yes: that will do. How are you getting on, Panton?”
“Badly. Feel as if someone was boring a hole in my shoulder with a red hot poker.”
“So do I,” said Oliver; “and as if he had got quite through, and was leaving the poker in to burn the hole bigger.”
“Serve you right.”
“Why?”
“You were always torturing some poor creature, sticking pins through it to ‘set it up’ as you call it.”
“But not alive. I always poisoned them first.”