“I haven’t had one worth speaking of,” continued Mr Burne, “for nearly—no, quite thirty years, and all that time I’ve been in dingy stuffy Sergeant’s Inn, sir. Yes; we’ll go travelling, professor, and bring him back a man.”
“It will kill him,” cried Mrs Dunn fiercely, and ruffling up and coming forward like an angry hen in defence of her solitary chick, the last the rats had left.
The lawyer sounded his trumpet, as if summoning his forces to a charge.
“I say he shall not go.”
“Mrs Dunn,” began the professor blandly.
“Stop!” cried the lawyer; “send for Doctor Shorter.”
“But he has been, sir,” remonstrated Mrs Dunn.
“Then let him come again, ma’am. He shall have his fee,” cried the lawyer; “send at once.”
Mrs Dunn’s lips parted to utter a protest, but the lawyer literally drove her from the room, and then turned back, taking snuff outrageously, to where the professor was now seated beside the sick lad.
“That’s routing the enemy,” cried the lawyer fiercely. “Why, confound the woman! She told me that the doctor said he ought to be taken to a milder clime.”