"'You are a great donkey,' she said, looking in at me; 'both the kestrels' are set as hard as a rock—here, take them!'
"And with that she threw the eggs in at me one after another through the open sash of the window. One took me right on the pin of my tie and dripped on to my waistcoat. Smell? Well, rather! Just then the old butler came in, looking like a field-marshal and archbishop rolled in one, and there was I rubbing the abominable yolk from my waistcoat. Truda had dropped off the window-sill like a bird, and the old fellow looked round the room very suspiciously. I think he thought I must have been pocketing the spoons or something.
"'Mr. Bliss Bulliston waits!' he said, as if he were taking me into the presence-chamber of royalty. And so he was, by George! I was shown into a large library-looking room where two men were sitting. One was a little Skye-terrier of a man, with bristly grey hair that stood out everyway about his head. He was lying in a long chair, half reclining, a rug over his knees though the day was warm. The other man sat apart in the window, a quiet fellow to all appearance, bald-headed, and rather tired-looking.
"'You are the doctor from Cairn Edward my daughter has been pestering me to see,' snapped the elder man. 'My case is a very difficult and complicated one, and quite beyond the reach of an average local practitioner, but I understand from my daughter that you have very special qualifications.' Whereupon I bowed, and said that I was your assistant."
"Good heavens!" I cried. "Peterson, had you no sense? Why on earth did you bring my name into the affair? I shall never get over it!"
"Oh," he answered, lightly; "wait a bit. I cleared you sufficiently in the end. Just listen.
"I was in a tight place, you will admit, but I thought it was best to put on my most impressive manner, and after a look or two at the old fellow, I resolved to treat him for nervous exhaustion. It was a dead fluke, but I had been reading Webb-Playfair's article on Neurasthenia just before I went out, and though men don't often have it, I thought it would do as well for old Bulliston as anything else.
"So I yarned away to him about his condition and symptoms, emaciated physical state, and so forth. Well, when I was getting pretty well warmed up I saw the young man with the hair thin-sown on top rise and go quietly over to another window. I put this down to modesty on his part. He wished to leave me alone with my patient. So I became more and more confidential to old Bulliston."
("Peterson," I moaned, "all is over between us from this moment!")
"But the old ruffian would not allow Mr. Baldhead to remove himself quietly," said Peterson, continuing his tale calmly.