“What a queer boy you are, Tom,” he said.
“Am I, uncle?” said the lad, colouring.
“To be sure you are. Most boys would be full of questions, and ask why that’s done.”
“Oh,” cried Tom, who smiled as he felt relieved, “I’m just the same, uncle—as full of questions as any boy.”
“But you don’t speak.”
“No, uncle; it’s because I don’t want you to think I’m a trouble, but I do want to know horribly all the same.”
“I’m glad of it, boy, because I don’t want what the Germans call a dummkopf to help me. I see; I must volunteer my information. To begin with then, that disc of glass is—”
“For the speculum,” said Tom eagerly; “and you’re going to polish it.”
“Wrong. That’s only for the tool. The other is for the speculum, and we are going to grind it upon the tool.”
He turned to the other flat disc of ground-glass, where it lay upon a piece of folded blanket upon a bench under the window, and laid his head upon it.