“Oh, don’t, don’t!” cried Steve, “pray! I know I behaved like a blackguard, and it served me right.”
“There, now you’re behaving like a human donkey, my lad, and talking nonsense. Put it aside now. You’re hot and excited. Let me give you a sedative draught.”
“Oh, Mr Handscombe!” cried the lad passionately. “To talk of physic at a time like this!”
“There you go again!” cried the doctor, unconsciously using Watty Links’s expression. “You’ve made your blood boil, and it wants cooling down.”
“Then I’ll drink some water or suck a lump of ice,” said Steve bitterly. “I can’t take physic now.”
“Nonsense, you excitable young donkey!” cried the doctor. “I meant a mental sedative draught. I want you to hear reason, if you will listen to me.”
“I don’t want to listen; I only want to be alone, sir.”
“Yes, to get into a stupid, morbid state, when a little bit of brave surgery—moral surgery—on your part would set all right.”
“There you go again, sir!” cried Steve querulously. “One minute you want to give me pills and a draught, the next you want to begin cutting me to pieces.”
The doctor burst out laughing.