Chapter Fourteen.
Dick Temple finds it unpleasant for another to learn to smoke.
There was too much to do in seeing that Dick was not likely to suffer from his long exposure for his father to say much to him that night. But there was a little conversation between Dick and Arthur, who slept in the same room.
It was after the candle was out, Arthur having received strict injunctions to go quietly to bed and not disturb his brother, who was said to be in a nice sleep and perspiring well.
This is what the doctor said, for he had been fetched and had felt Dick’s pulse. He had looked very grave and shaken his head, saying that fever might supervene, and ended by prescribing a stimulus under another name, and a hot bath.
“Just as if I hadn’t sucked up water enough to last me for a month!” Dick had said.
The people at the little hotel thought it unnecessary to send for a doctor, and when he came the doctor thought so too; but he omitted to make any remarks to that effect, contenting himself with looking very grave, and treating Dick as if his was a very serious case indeed.
And now the patient was lying snugly tucked up in bed, with only his nose and one eye visible, with the exception of a tuft of his hair, and Arthur was undressing in the dark, and very carefully folding up his clothes.
He had been deliberately undressing himself, brushing his hair, and going generally through a very niggling performance for nearly half an hour before Dick spoke, for the latter was enjoying the fun, as he called it, “of listening to old Taff muddling about in the dark, instead of jumping into bed at once.”