I get up hastily and go over to the patient. I take him by the arm, pull him sharply to the window and turn him round—an action which he resents.
"I wish to goodness you fellows would not make asses of yourselves," he says, as he flings himself down on the sofa.
Almond and I look at one another as if this fretfulness were one of the worst signs, and we had quite expected it. We say nothing for a little as we sit down to work; but uneasily, as if we have something on our minds. Presently I rise, and, going into the bedroom, motion to Almond as I go. This action is not lost on Mac. I did not mean that it should be. We shut the door and whisper together. Mac comes and shakes the door, which is locked on the inside.
"Come out of that, you fellows," he cries, "and don't be gibbering idiots!"
But for all that he is palpably nervous and uneasy.
"Go away and lie down, like a good fellow," I say soothingly; "it'll be all right—all right."
But Mac is not soothed in the least. Then we whisper some more, and rustle the leaves of a large Quain which lies on the mantelpiece, a legacy from some former medical lodger. After a respectable time we come out without looking at Mac, who peers at us steadily from the sofa. I go directly to the Scotsman of the day, and run my finger down the serried columns till I come to the paragraph which gives the mortality for the week. Almond looks over my shoulder the while, and I make a score with my finger-nail under the words "enteric fever." We are sure that Mac does not know what enteric fever is. No more do we, but that does not matter.
We withdraw solemnly one by one, as if we were a procession, with a muttered excuse to Mac that we are going out to see a man. Almond sympathetically and silently brings a dressing-gown to cover his feet. He angrily kicks it across the floor.
"I say, you fellows—" he begins, as we go out.
But we take no heed. The case is too serious. Then we go into the kitchen and discuss it with the landlady.