“Yes, ma’am, I’ll prescribe turpentine.”
“Turpentine!” cried Mrs Alleyne, aghast.
“Yes, madam, out of nature’s own pharmacopaeia. Let him go and climb the hills every day, and inhale it when the sun is on the fir woods. Let him get a horse and ride amongst the firs, or let him take a spade and dig the ground about this house, and turn it into a pleasant garden, surrounded by fir trees. That is all he wants.”
“Oh, doctor, is that all?” said Mrs Alleyne more warmly; and she laid her thin, white hand upon her visitor’s arm.
“Well, not quite,” he said, with a smile. “He is a great student; no one admires his work more than I, or the wonderful capacity of his mind, but he must be taken out of it a little—a man cannot always be studying the stars.”
“No, no; he does too much,” said Mrs Alleyne. “You are quite right. But what would you recommend?”
“Nature again, madam. Something to give him an interest in this world, as well as in the other worlds he makes his study. In short, Mrs Alleyne, it would be the saving of your son if he fell in love.”
“Doctor!”
“And took to himself some sweet good girl as a wife.”
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”