“Let’s hear. You say you have got something wrong with your head?”
“Well, I suppose it is my head, sir. But you know I am always getting into some trouble or another.”
“Exactly. You are notorious for your boyish pranks.”
“Yes, sir; and I want to get the better of it. It’s as the Major said: the troubles I get into are boys’ troubles, and not suitable to a young man.”
“The Major’s wise, Archie. Then why don’t you put off all your boyish mischief and remember that you are now pretty well a man grown, and, as one of our lads would say in his cockney lingo, ‘act as sich?’”
“Because I can’t, Doctor,” said the lad earnestly. “I want to act as a man. I’m six feet two, and I shave regularly.”
“Humph!” grunted the Doctor, who had to make an effort to keep his countenance.
“And whenever I get into trouble I make a vow that I’ll never do such a childish, schoolboyish thing again; but it’s no use, for before many days have passed, something tempts me, and I find myself doing more foolish things than ever. Can it be that there is some screw loose in my head?”
The Doctor sat looking earnestly in the lad’s agitated countenance, for his brow was one tangle of deeply marked wrinkles.
“I think sometimes I must be going mad, or at all events growing into an idiot, and you can’t think how wretched and despairing it makes me. Do you think medicine—tonic or anything of that sort—would do me good?”