“So I have,” said Archie, drawing himself up and glancing across at Minnie, and then giving himself an angry jerk as he saw that she was laughing.
“Do you want to see me, Maine?” said the Doctor.
“Yes, sir, if you are at liberty.”
“Yes; all right, my lad.—Don’t trouble yourself, Dallas. That will be all right.—Into my room, Maine;” and he led the way into a pleasant, comfortably furnished room looking out upon the clearing at the back, a room evidently the Doctor’s surgery more than consulting-room, but whose formality was softened down by the cut-flowers which indicated the busy interference of the ladies of the house. “Sit down, my lad,” continued the Doctor, as he took a bamboo chair opposite that to which he had motioned his visitor; and gazing searchingly at him, he reached out his hand: “Head queer?”
“No, no, sir,” cried the subaltern, with his brow wrinkling up again. “I only wanted to know about last night and the men wounded.”
“Oh! That’s what Sir Charles came about. Well, it’s nothing much, my boy. It’s rather a large pull on my roll of sticking-plaster and a few bandages—rival clans or houses—do you bite your thumb at me, sir?—eh—Montagus and Capulets. Consequence of men carrying lethal weapons—only krises instead of rapiers. Bad thing to let men carry arms.”
“What about soldiers, then, sir?” said Archie merrily. “Bayonets, side-arms?”
“Ah, but there we have a discipline, my dear boy. But, all the same, it has fallen to my lot to treat a bayonet-dig or two when our fellows have got at the rack. Well, I am glad you are all right. I thought you looked a little fishy about the gills.”
“Not I, sir. I managed a splendid breakfast this morning.”
“Yes, boy; you are good that way. I often envy you, for what with my health and every one’s health to think about, doctoring one man for fever, putting all you fellows straight, and patching up squabbling savages, my appetite often feels as if it wants a fillip. A doctor’s is an anxious life, my boy—more especially out here in a country like this, amongst a very uncertain people, when a man feels that he has a stake in the country.”