James felt my pulse and passed his hand over my forehead.
“I wonder if I had better ask him to come round this evening?” he suggested.
“No,” I said, “don’t do that; in fact I was going to ask you to ring up and say I am so much better, that I think he had better not call to-morrow. He is fearfully busy, and if I am as well as this I want to go into town and get some soap—and a hatchet——”
James thought me extremely silly, and said the man was a deuced clever chap. I bided my time and had my reward later.
James got a bad chill, and I sent at once for Dr. Smithson. I provided him with a bag of the ordinary Castile soap, four thick towels, and my clinical thermometer, and left the room.
From the study downstairs I could hear the gentle monotonous flow of sound, and the hands of the clock moved peacefully on. Presently the stream of sound became fuller as it was joined by another and more familiar current. There was a prolonged duet. I thought of the Zonophone Opera Company in the last part of “Home to our Mountains”; the clock struck another hour, and I heard the door open. The first single stream of sound flowed down the stairs alone, and died away as the front door banged. I left James five minutes to get his breath, and then I went up.
“Well, dear,” I said, “I hope he is going to do you good. I suppose he does not want you to have many visitors, no talking——”
“The man’s a damn fool!” said James. “I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.”
“Did he take your temperature?” I asked.
“Yes,” replied James. “I wanted to put the thing under my arm—it’s the proper way to take a temperature—but he stuck it in my mouth and left it there an hour while he talked.”