“No, no, dear; the Prince, however stern his father may be, is just, and he will not punish you.”
“I don’t know,” said the boy drearily. “I want to do something before I am stopped;” and he hurried away, looking older and more careworn than ever, to go at once to the officers’ quarters, intending to see Captain Murray; but the first person he met was the doctor, who caught him by the arm, and almost dragged him into his room.
“Sit down there,” he cried sharply, as he scanned the boy with his searching gaze.
“Don’t stop me, sir, please,” said Frank appealingly. “I am very busy. Do you want me?”
“No; but you look as if you want me.”
“No, sir—no.”
“But I say you do. Don’t contradict me. Think I don’t know what I’m saying? You do want me. A boy of your years has no business to look like that. What have you been doing? Why, your pulse is galloping nineteen to the dozen, and your head’s as hot as fire. You’ve been eating too much, you voracious young wolf. It’s liver and bile. All right, my fine fellow! Pill hydrarg, to-night, and to-morrow morning a delicious goblet before breakfast—sulph mag, tinct sennae, ditto calumba. That will set you right.”
Frank looked at him for a moment piteously, and then burst into a strange laugh.
“Eh, hallo!” cried the doctor; “don’t laugh in that maniacal way, boy. Have I got hold of the pig by the wrong tail? Bah! I mean the wrong tail by the pig. Nonsense! nonsense! I mean the wrong pig by— Oh, I see now. Why, Frank, my boy, of course. Ah, poor lad! poor lad! Murray has been telling me. Well, it’s a bad job, and I shouldn’t have thought it of Rob Gowan. But there, I don’t know: humanum est errare. Not so much erroring in it either. Circumstances alter cases, and I dare say that if I were kicked out of the army, and I had a chance to be made chief surgeon to the forces of you know whom, I should accept the post.”
The boy’s head sank down upon his hands, and he did not seem to hear the doctor’s words.