Volume Two—Chapter Twenty.
A Parcel by Carrier.
Dr Benson drove over daily from King’s Hampton to attend Sir Thomas Candlish, and, to do Dr Benson justice, he made a very good professional job of the injury to the young baronet, both from his own and the ordinary point of view.
Tom Candlish protested, but the doctor was inexorable.
“No, sir,” he said, “injuries like yours require time. Nature must be able to thoroughly mend the damage done. I could have helped her to patch you up—to cobble you, so to speak; but the tender spot would break out again. I must do my work thoroughly.”
“But your drives over here—your bill will be monstrous.”
“Large, but not monstrous, my dear sir,” said Dr Benson, smiling; “and what are a few pounds compared to your valuable life?”
Tom Candlish lay thinking that there was something in this, and that it was far better to pay even a hundred pounds than to have been carried to the Candlish mausoleum, and without paying out North for the injuries he had received.