"What! are you turning jealous of a girl that nurses half the regiment? Let me see your knocks,—how are they?"
"Confoundedly sore! My ribs are all broken to pieces, I think."
"Scarcely," replied the doctor, passing his hand over the injured part; "they are all as sound as ever they were. Do you find that sore?" said he, deliberately poking his finger on particular places with the most medical nonchalance.
"The devil, Dick! to be sure I do," said Ronald, wincing, and suppressing a violent inclination to cry out, or punch the other's head.
"Sore, eh?"
"Very," said the other sulkily.
"Ah! I thought you would."
"I suppose you mean to follow up this attack, by prescribing bleeding and hot water?"
"The first, certainly; the last, as may be required," said Stuart, the doctor in his turn getting a little piqued.
"I have dozed away a whole day," said Ronald.