“Eh? Don’t you know where he is?”
“No, sir,” said Frank sadly.
“Humph! Pity!” said the doctor, taking a fresh pinch of snuff. “Because, if you had known, you might have written to tell him that I’ve cured the baron, and sent him away. Yes, I worked very hard over his case. Many’s the night I sat up with him, so that he shouldn’t, slip through my fingers. For it would have been so much worse for your father if he had.”
“Yes, horrible,” said Frank.
“I say, you ought to get him back now. Have a try.”
“But what can I do, sir?” cried Frank eagerly.
“Oh, I don’t know. No use to ask me, boy. Politics are not in my way. If you like to come to me with a broken bone, or a cut, or a hole in you anywhere, I’m your man, and I’ll try and set you right. Or if you want a dose of good strong physic, I’ll mix you up something that will make you smack your lips and shout for sugar. But that other sort of thing is quite out of my way. What do you say to our all signing a round robin, and sending it into the King? for we all want Gowan back.”
“Yes, sir—capital!” cried Frank; but Andrew smiled contemptuously.
“Or look here. You’re a boy—smart lad too, with plenty of brains,” continued the doctor, who had noticed Andrew’s sneer; “sensible sort of boy—not a dandy, gilded vane, like Forbes here. Ah! don’t you look at me like that, sir, or next time you’re sick I’ll give you such a dose as shall make you smile the other way.”
“Come along, Frank,” said the lad angrily. “You wait a minute. I haven’t done with him yet. Look here, boy,” he continued, clapping Frank on the shoulder; “there’s nothing a man and a father likes better than a good, natural, straightforward, manly sort of boy. I don’t mean a fellow who spends half his time scenting himself, brushing his hair to make it curl, and looking at himself in the glass.—Here, hallo! what’s the matter with you, Forbes? I didn’t say you did. Pavement warm? Cat on hot bricks is nothing to you.”