Teddy Brisk's mother laughed.
"Not me!" said she.
A cunning idea occurred to Skipper Thomas.
"Or cowardice!" he grumbled.
Teddy Brisk's mother started. She stared in doubt at old Skipper Thomas. Her face clouded. She was grim.
"I'd do nothin' so wicked as that, sir," said she. "I'll pack un up."
It chanced that Timothy Light was sunk in a melancholy regard of his physical health when Skipper Thomas went to arrange for the dogs. He was discovered hugging a red-hot bogie in his bachelor cottage of turf and rough-hewn timber by the turn to Sunday-School Hill. And a woebegone old fellow he was: a sight to stir pity and laughter—with his bottles and plasters, his patent-medicine pamphlets, his drawn, gloomy countenance, and his determination to "draw off" the indisposition by way of his lower extremities with a plaster of renowned power.
"Nothin' stronger, Skipper Thomas, knowed t' the science o' medicine an' the"—Skipper Timothy did not hesitate over the obstacle—"the prac-t'-tie-on-ers thereof," he groaned; "an' she've begun t' pull too. Ecod! but she's drawin'! Mm-m-m! There's power for you! An' if she don't pull the pain out o' the toes o' my two feet"—Skipper Timothy's feet were swathed in plaster; his pain was elsewhere; the course of its exit was long—"I'm free t' say that nothin' will budge my complaint. Mm-m! Ecod! b'y, but she've sure begun t' draw!"