It was a clever piece of acting, studied from nature, and sinking back, he lay for a moment or two sufficiently long for the supposed patient to compose himself, before he assumed another part.
Leaping up, he went on tiptoe to the consulting-room again, peeped to see that all was right, and then, drawing himself up exactly as he had seen the doctor act scores of times, he slowly approached the settee, his face full of smiling interest, and sitting down in a chair beside the imaginary patient, he went through a magnificent piece of pantomime—so good that it was a pity there was no audience present to admire. For Bob had taken the doctor’s glasses from the chimney-piece, put them on, and bent over the patient.
“Put out your tongue,” he said. “Hum—ha! yes! a little foul.”
Then he felt an imaginary pulse, his head on one side, and an imaginary watch in his hand.
“That will do,” he said, returning the imaginary watch to its airy fob. “Now sit up.”
Bob’s ear was applied for a few moments to the phantom patient’s chest.
“Breathe hard. That’s it. Now more fully. Yes. Now a very long breath.”
So real was the proceeding that a spectator would have filled up the void in his mind as Bob changed his position, holding his head now at the patient’s back.
“Hah!” he ejaculated, as he rose. “A little congestion! Stop a moment.”
He fetched a stethoscope from the chimney-piece, but instead of using it at once, proceeded to lay his hand here and there upon his imaginary patient’s breast, and tap the back over and over again.