“No, no, Doctor; I beg your pardon!” said Archie. “I don’t mean that. It is only because I want to be out with the fellows, trying to run that brutal scoundrel down.”
“Yes, yes, my boy, I know. But wait. Everything possible is being done, and any hour the news may come in that my poor child has been found and some one has been shot down. Archie, my boy, nothing would afford me greater delight than to see that lurid-looking heathen brought in half-dead, and handed over to my tender mercies.”
Archie burst out into a mocking laugh.
“What do you mean by that, sir?” said Dr Morley.
“I was thinking, Doctor, you would set to at once attending to his wounds, and making him well as soon as you possibly could.”
“What! A treacherous, cunning savage! I’d— Well, I suppose you are right, boy. Habit’s habit. But the British lawyers would tackle him afterwards, and he would get his deserts. They’d put a stop to him being Rajah of Dang any more. There, I’ve no time to stop gossiping with you.”
“But when may I get up, Doctor? It seems so absurd for me to be lying here.”
“That’s what you think. Well, there, I won’t be hard on you. If you keep quiet now, and are as much better to-morrow as I found you to-day, and you will promise to be very careful, I’ll let you get up. Now I must go and see to that other ruffian.”
“Peter Pegg? But you are not keeping him in bed?”
“Oh no. He didn’t get it so badly as you.”