“How so?” inquired the disciple of Aesculapius.
“Attending to your wounded man, Louis Blanc, to be sure; and he seemed to speak to him as wisely as if he had walked the hospitals, and regularly passed for an M.D.”
“Indeed!” said the doctor, with a mischievous grin. “Then I must pay him off for interfering with my patients.”
“Ah, doctor, you’re too fond of practical jokes. You never let slip an opportunity of ‘paying off’ your friends for something or other. It’s a bad habit. Practical jokes are very bad things—shockingly bad,” said Mr Wilson, as he put on his fur cap, and wound a thick shawl round his throat, preparatory to leaving the room.
As Mr Wilson gave utterance to this opinion, he passed Harry Somerville, who was still staring at the fire in deep mental abstraction, and, as he did so, gave his tilted chair a very slight push backwards with his finger—an action which caused Harry to toss up his legs, grasp convulsively with both hands at empty air, and fall with a loud noise and an angry yell to the ground, while his persecutor vanished from the scene.
“O you outrageous villain!” cried Harry, shaking his fist at the door, as he slowly gathered himself up: “I might have expected that.”
“Quite so,” said the doctor; “you might. It was very neatly done, undoubtedly. Wilson deserves credit for the way in which it was executed.”
“He deserves to be executed for doing it at all,” replied Harry, rubbing his elbow as he resumed his seat.
“Any bark knocked off?” inquired the accountant, as he took a piece of glowing charcoal from the stove wherewith to light his pipe. “Try a whiff, Harry. It’s good for such things. Bruises, sores, contusions, sprains, rheumatic affections of the back and loins, carbuncles, and earache—there’s nothing that smoking won’t cure; eh, doctor?”
“Certainly. If applied inwardly, there’s nothing so good for digestion when one doesn’t require tonics.—Try it, Harry; it will do you good, I assure you.”