“Quite a poison, sir!—poison’s nothing to it! Here, I say, what am I to do?”
“If your excellency will allow me,” said Yussuf, “I will prick the bite with the point of my knife, and then rub in a little brandy.”
“Yes, do, for goodness’ sake, man, before I go mad.”
“Use this,” said the professor, taking a little stoppered bottle from his pocket.
“What is it—more poison?” cried Mr Burne.
“Ammonia,” said the professor quietly.
“Humph!” ejaculated the patient; and he sat down on another stone, after making sure that it did not cover an insect’s nest, and had not been made the roof of a viper’s home.
Quite a crowd gathered round, to the old lawyer’s great disgust, as he prepared himself for the operation.
“Hang the scoundrels!” he cried; “anyone would think they had never seen an old man’s white leg before.”
“I don’t suppose they ever have, Mr Burne,” said Lawrence.