"Oh yes, just a little; my arm feels pins-and-needlesy, just as if I had been to sleep on it in an awkward position; and it looks as if it was turning into a snake."
"What, twists and twines about?"
"No—o—o—o! What nonsense! How can a thing with stiff bones in it twist and twine about? I mean, the skin's all marked something like a snake's; but Dr. Cameron says I need not mind, for it will all go off in time. Oh, I am so sick of it all! I wish I hadn't killed the snake."
"What!" cried Phra.
"No, I don't quite mean that, because of course I'm glad to have killed the horrible, poisonous thing; only it's so tiresome. That's nearly a month ago, and everybody's watching me to see how I look, and asking me how I am, and you're about the worst of the lot."
"It's quite natural, Hal."
"Is it? Then I wish it wasn't. I suppose it's quite natural for Mrs.
Cameron to begin to cry as soon as she sees me."
"It's because she feels grateful to you for saving her life."
"There you go again," cried Harry peevishly. "Saving her life! Oh, how I wish I hadn't! Everybody will keep telling me of it, and one says it was so good of me, and another calls me a brave young hero; and just because I hit a snake a whack with an old bamboo stool. It's sickening."
Phra laughed heartily.