“How dah you, sir! It’s your rank mutinous obstinacy that makes you say so. Take away that nasty hot paw.”
Joe went to the mantelpiece, took a large square bottle of eau-de-Cologne, removed the stopper, and once more drew out his father’s pocket-handkerchief, moistened it with the scent, and softly applied it to the sufferer’s forehead.
“Confound you!” cried the Major. “Will you leave me alone, sir, or am I to get up and fetch my cane to you?”
“What do they make eau-de-Cologne of, father?” said Joe, coolly. “Does it come from a spring like all those nasty mineral waters you take?”
“It’s insufferable!” panted the Major.
“Time you had a drink, father,” said Joe, quietly.
“It is not, sir. I take that medicine at eleven o’clock, military time. It wants quite half-an-hour to that yet. You want to be off to play with that idle young scoundrel of Pendarve’s, I suppose; but I wish you to stay here till it is eleven. Do you hear that, sir? You disobey me if you dare.”
“Five minutes past eleven now, dad,” said Joe, after a glance at the clock over the chimney-piece.
“It’s not, sir,” cried the Major, turning his head quickly to look for himself, and then wincing from pain. “That clock’s wrong. It’s a wretched cheap fraud, and never did keep time. Fast! Nearly an hour fast!”
“Said it was the best timekeeper in Cornwall only yesterday,” said Joe to himself, as he went to a side table on which stood a couple of bottles, a glass, and water-jug.