“You can’t do it in those tight trousers. You want good loose, baggy breeches, knickerbockery sort of things. Oh, you’d soon do it.—That’s better.”
“Yes,” said the doctor dubiously; “that’s a little better; but these trousers are, as you say, too tight. I tell you what I’d do, Frank,” he continued, perfectly seriously, “I’d have my head shaved clean, and keep it so.”
“Bravo!” cried the professor excitedly. “Splendid! Your bald head over that grand beard and a very large white turban of the finest Eastern muslin, twisted up as I could twist it for you, would give just the finishing touches. Just spread the skirts of that dressing-gown a little.”
Frank sprang to the task, and in arranging the folds uncovered one of the yellow Morocco slippers the doctor happened to be wearing.
“That’s good,” cried the professor excitedly. “Fetch those sofa cushions, Frank, and put them so that he can rest his arm upon them. Good! Now a pipe. Here, fish out my stick from under the table. That’s right,” he continued, as Frank placed the stick upside down in the doctor’s hand, with the ferrule near his lips and the hook resting on the floor, turned up like a bowl.
“Well, I am!” cried the professor, drawing his legs more under him, and nodding at his old school-fellow seated opposite at the other end of the hearthrug. “Franky, boy, he looks the very perfection of a Turkish doctor now, while with the real things on and his head shaved, and the turban— Oh, I haven’t a doubt of it, he’d humbug the Mahdi himself if he were alive. I haven’t a bit of fear about him. Sit still, old man.—As for myself, I should be all right; when I get out there I feel more of a native than an Englishman. It’s you who are the trouble, Franky, for I confess I am coming round.”
“I shall get myself up perfectly. You may depend upon that,” said the lad confidently, “and all through the voyage out Morris will coach me up about bandaging and helping him in ambulance work, so that I may get to be a bit clever as his assistant.”
“Yes, yes, yes, that’s all right,” said the professor impatiently. “It’s not that which bothers me. Look at Bob. I can see him in his part exactly. Nothing could be better; but I can’t see you at all.”
“Why? Set your imagination to work.”
“I am, my dear boy; I am. It’s working till my brain’s beginning to throb; but I can’t see you, as I say.”