Frank looked at the white face before him with its contracted features and ghastly aspect about the pinched-in lips.
“About as bad as he can be, my lad. A man can’t have a sharp piece of steel run through his chest without feeling a bit uncomfortable. Lesson for you, my boys. You see what duelling really is. You’ll neither of you quarrel and go out after this.”
“Why not?” said Andrew sharply. “I should, and so would Frank Gowan, if we were insulted by a foreigner.”
“Bah!” cried the doctor testily. “Nice language for a boy like you.”
“Please tell me, sir,” said Frank anxiously. “Will he get better?”
“Why do you want to know, you young dog?” said the doctor, turning upon him sharply. “No business here at all, either of you.”
“My father is so anxious to know. I want to run back and tell him.”
“Oh, that’s it!” said the doctor gruffly. “No business to have broken out to fight; but I suppose I must tell him. Go back and say that the baron has got a hole in his chest and another in his back, and his life is trying to slip out of one of them; but I’ve got them stopped, and that before his life managed to pop out. Lucky for him that I was here; and I’m very glad, tell your father, that it has turned out as it has, for I stood all through the ugly business, expecting every moment that he would go down wounded to the death.”
“Yes, I’ll tell him,” said Frank hurriedly.
“Don’t rush off like that, boy. How should you like to be a surgeon?”