“Get out? What’s the good of having these things if some one else don’t enjoy ’em too? Make Hendon a bit more civil to me. He is so jolly—so jolly—what do you call it?—soopercilious with me. Because I’m not a doctor, I suppose. There’s half a dozen good ones for him when he comes in. Now then, doctor, go ahead. Want to see my tongue?”
“No—no,” said the doctor; “the look of your eye is sufficient, Mr Poynter. It is much clearer. Felt any more of the chest symptoms?”
“No, not so much of them; but I don’t sleep as I should: feverish and tossy—spend half my nights punching my pillow.”
“Have you given up the suppers?”
“Well, not quite. You see a man can’t drop everything. I know a lot of men, and one’s obliged, you see, to do as they do. But now look here; doctor. You’ve been treating me these three months.”
“Dear me! is it so long as that?”
“More. You’ve poked my chest about, and listened to my works, and given me all sorts of stuff to take, and told me to eat this and drink that, and now I suppose you think I’m sound, wind and limb?”
“Certainly, my dear sir, certainly. I told you so at the first, and that no treatment was necessary.”
“Yes, yes, all right; but I’d got to be a bit nervous doctor, and now, as I say, you think me sound, wind and limb?”
“Quite.”