“He turned as red, madam, as red as a beet,” the clergyman declared, “and then as white—as white as your handkerchief, and frothed at the mouth. I never saw a person turn so white—positively livid. Conceive my feelings. I was really very much pained, and very apprehensive. I thought certainly that it was heart-disease, and that he was about to breathe his last. I can't tell you how distressing it is, to have such a thing occur in the midst of such a joyful occasion. It has given my nerves a most serious shock.”
His auditors murmured sympathetically.
“Well, doctor, what's to be done? Can you fetch him around?” Redwood asked.
“Oh,” the doctor said, “he'll come around naturally in a little while—an hour or two, at the furthest. I think that we had better carry him to another room, where it will be quieter and cooler and away from the people.”
“No,” put in the rabbi; “if you will help me get him into the carriage, I'll take him home.”
“Why,” exclaimed Redwood, “if you do that we'll have to postpone the wedding.”
“Yes, I shouldn't wonder,” concurred the rabbi.
“But then—there'll be the very deuce to pay. Here are these guests assembled, and supper prepared, and their passage engaged on to-morrow's steamer, and their trunks gone aboard, by George, and every thing in apple-pie order; and take it all around, you couldn't make a more awkward proposition.”
“Add to which,” interposed the medical man, “that in his present condition, a carriage-drive, and the jolting up which it would involve, are just the things that might do him the most injury.”
“I'm sorry,” the rabbi said; “but being his only relative here, I feel myself responsible for him, and must act as my own judgment directs. I shall thank you, therefore, if you will assist me in carrying him to our carriage.”