“Johnny, I wonder if there’s any place where they sell beef-tea?” cried Tod, as we went up Broad Street. “My goodness! lying there in that state, with no help at hand!”
“I never saw anything so bad before, Tod.”
“Do you know what I kept thinking of all the time? I could not get it out of my head.”
“What?”
“Of Lazarus at the rich man’s gate. Johnny, lad, there seems an awful responsibility lying on some of us.”
To hear Tod say such a thing was stranger than all. He set off running, and burst into our sitting-room in the Star, startling the Pater, who was alone and reading one of the Worcester papers with his spectacles on. Tod sat down and told him all.
“Dear me! dear me!” cried the Pater, growing red as he listened. “Why, Joe, the poor fellow must be dying!”
“He may not have gone too far for recovery, father,” was Tod’s answer. “If we had to lie in that close hole, and had nothing to eat or drink, we should probably soon become skeletons also. He may get well yet with proper care and treatment.”
“It seems to me that the first thing to be done is to get him into the Infirmary,” remarked the Pater.