With a tolerant little glance at his patient’s face the young man complied, and accepted a cigarette, which he smoked with exceeding relish while the work was in progress.
“There we are!” Preston said, triumphantly, after a while. “Bravo! the magistrature, as you call it here—or is it the barreau?—has lost a great luminary in my humble person. Read my chef-d’œuvre, my friend, and tell me what you think of it. You observe that I have made it out both in French and in English. Hum! Wasn’t that smart of me?”
“It’s always best to humor patients,” the other reflected, remembering the teachings of more than one grim instructor, and he took the wide-open page, over which he scarcely glanced. What did it matter to him?
“It seems very legal,” he smiled, good-naturedly. “Do you really wish my signature and Olivier’s to this?” (Olivier was the orderly’s gracious cognomen.)
“Course I do; otherwise why should I have given myself such elaborate pains? The caligraphy may leave a little to be desired, but what will you? À la guerre comme à la guerre!”
The deed accomplished with no solemnity at all, Preston closed the second envelope and joined it to the first in his pocket.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, pleasantly, “I should like to read for half an hour or so before composing myself to slumber. Will you be so good as to hand me that most interesting volume of short stories there on the chair?”
The interne readily complied. He wanted to write a few words to his mother before retiring, and so he quickly returned to the salon.
Slowly, and with some difficulty, Preston drew the upper part of his body inch by inch to the very edge of the bed, made a long arm, and managed noiselessly to reach a bottle adorned with a crimson label. Steadily, deliberately, laboriously, he took the tumbler from the tray, half-filled it with wine from the decanter, poured in the whole contents of the medicine-bottle—slanting the glass so as to avoid any sound—replaced everything in order, and swallowed the dose in two deep draughts. Then he lay back on his pillow, and, strange to say, this non-Catholic made the sign of the cross.