“Never better in my life.”
“Then it’s too bad, sir,” cried the lawyer. “I’ve been waiting to see you give up, and if you will not, I must, for there’s something wrong with this boat.”
“Nonsense! One of the best boats on the line.”
“Then, there’s something wrong with me. I can’t enjoy my snuff, and it’s all nonsense for this boy to be called an invalid. I’m the invalid, sir, and I am horribly ill. Help me below, there’s a good fellow.”
Mr Burne looked so deplorably miserable, and at the same time so comic, that it was impossible to avoid smiling, and as he saw this he stamped his foot.
“Laughing at me, eh? Both of you. Now, look here. I know you both feel so poorly that you don’t know what to do, and I’ll stop up on deck and watch you out of spite.”
“Nonsense! I could not help smiling,” said the professor good-humouredly. “Let me help you down.”
“Thank you, no,” said the lawyer taking off his hat to wipe his moist brow, and then putting it on again, wrong way first. “I’m going to stop on deck, sir—to stop on deck.”
He seemed to be making a tremendous effort to master the qualmish feeling that had attacked him, and in this case determination won.
A night at Boulogne, and at breakfast-time next morning Lawrence seemed no worse for the journey, so they went on at once to Paris, where a day’s rest was considered advisable, and then, the preliminaries having been arranged, the train was entered once more, and after two or three stoppages to avoid over-wearying the patient, Trieste was reached, where a couple of days had to be passed before the arrival of the steamer which was to take them to Smyrna, and perhaps farther, though the professor was of opinion that it might be wise to make that the starting-place for the interior.