“I’m very glad to hear you say so,” cried the doctor. “If you had not, before many days were over I should have sounded the alarm myself.”
“Indeed!” cried Sir John.
“Yes; I should have presumed on our old intimacy, and told you what I thought, and that it was time something was done. We’ll take him up to Doctor Lorimer, or Sir Humphrey Dean, or one of the other medical big-wigs. You sent for me, then, to give you my opinion. Here it is straight. It is the right thing to do, and before you start, I’ll write down my idea of the proper course of treatment, and I guarantee that either of the fashionable physicians will prescribe the same remedies.”
“Then,” said Sir John eagerly, “you think you can see what is the matter with him?”
“Think? I’m sure, sir.”
“I am glad of it, for I had decided not to take him up to a physician.”
“Thank you, father,” said Jack, giving him a grateful look. “There really is no need.”
“Because,” continued Sir John firmly, “I thought the matter over,”—and he talked at his son—“and I said to myself that it is impossible that a London doctor can in a visit or two understand the case half so well as the medical man who has known and attended him from a child.”
“Thank you, Meadows,” said the doctor warmly. “I thank you for your confidence. I do not want to boast of my knowledge, but, as I said before, I am perfectly sure of what is the matter with Jack here.”
“Yes? What is it?—or no, I ought not to ask you that,” said the father, with a hasty glance at his son.