“He must have seen me near the place, and he called to me. There was nobody there but him, and some chairs and a table and glasses and things. He asked me to sit down, and began telling me he had been saying ‘Lord Bateman’ to them all. I didn’t know what ‘Lord Bateman’ meant, Master Johnny—and he said he would tell it me; he should not mind then, but he had minded saying it to the company. It was poetry, I found; but he stopped in the middle, and told me to go then, for he saw some of them coming——”
“Some of what?” I interrupted.
“Well, I took it to mean some of his grown-up party, or else the college boys. Anyway, he seemed to want me gone, sir, and I went off at once. I didn’t see him after that.”
“He must have fallen asleep, and somehow slipped over.”
“Yes, sir. What a pity he was left in that shallow place!”
King seemed to have all his wits about him, but his face had a white, odd look in it. He lay in a room on the first floor, that belonged in general to the two girls. When I said Mark Ferrar was outside, King asked me to take him up. But I did not like taking him without speaking to Captain Sanker; and I went to him in the parlour.
“The idea of a Frog coming into our house!” cried resentful Dan, as he heard me. “It’s like his impudence to stop outside it! What next? Let him wait till King’s well.”
“You hold your tongue, Dan,” cried the captain. “The boy shall go up, whether he’s a Frog, or whether he’s one of you. Take him up, Johnny.”
He did not look unlike a frog when he got into the room, with his wide, red, freckled face and his great wide mouth—but, as I have said, it was a face to be trusted. The first thing he did, looking at King, was to burst into a great blubber of tears.
“I hope you’ll get well,” said he.