“Yes, Miss; I know. I’ve seen the doctor do it twiced to gals as come and wanted him to pull out their teeth, and he wouldn’t. I’ll show yer.”
Bob ran to a drawer and took out a camel-hair pencil, and operated with it dry upon his own face.
“I’ll show yer,” he cried. “You begins just in front o’ the ear and makes a round spot, and then yer goes on right down the cheek and along yer chin, just as if you was trying to paint whiskers. Let me do it, Miss.”
Rich hesitated for a moment, and then sat down and held her face on one side, while the boy carefully painted the place with the tincture, frowning the while and balancing himself upon the tips of his toes.
“Stop a moment, Miss,” cried Bob. “Then he dropped two drops out o’ this here blue bottle on a bit o’ glass, and finished off with it just as you does with gum when you paint a picture.”
Rich watched the boy anxiously as he took down a bottle labelled “Chloroform,” but smiled and submitted patiently as the painting operation was completed.
“Feel better, Miss?” said the boy.
“Not yet, Bob; but I daresay this will do it good. Now put back those bottles, and don’t meddle with them, mind.”
“As if I didn’t know, Miss! Why, I’m up to all the doctor’s dodges now. There ain’t a bottle on any o’ them shelves I ain’t smelled; and look at them things in sperrits,” he continued, pointing to the various preparations standing upon one shelf, the relics of the doctor’s lecturing days. “I knows ’em all by heart. I had to fill ’em with fresh sperrit once.”
Rich turned and smiled at the boy as she reached the door; and then once more the young student was left alone, to go and peep through the keyhole to see if the doctor was fast asleep, and this being so, he ran to the door by the street, turned suddenly with his head on one side, raised his hands with the helpless, appealing gesture of the sick, and walked feebly to the cushioned chest, upon which he sank, with a low moan.