The ghost of a smile flitted across Dinkel's rugged face. "What should I gain by that, sir? Only the hangman's noose. I think you ought to credit me with a desire for lengthening your days, not for shortening them."
"It would puzzle you to make 'em much shorter than they seem likely to be," gasped the Squire, with a painful imitation of one of his old chuckles. "Well, well," he resumed, "I'll venture on a dose of this stuff of yours, not because I've any faith in it, mind you, but merely to take the cock-a-doodle out of you, and prove to you that you're not the wonderfully clever fellow you're inclined to crack yourself up as being."
Not for days had the Squire spoken so much in so short a time, and as the last words died from off his lips his eyes closed and he sank into a half swoon.
He could not have been in more competent hands, and before long he was brought back to consciousness. His first words, in a feeble whisper, were: "Give me the stuff; I'll take it."
From his waistcoat pocket Dinkel extracted a tiny phial, no bigger than his little finger, about three-parts full of a ruby-colored fluid, which he proceeded to empty into a dessert spoon.
"You won't find it at all disagreeable," he said, as he proffered the spoon and its contents to the Squire.
"It tastes not unlike the liquorice-root I used to be fond of when a lad," murmured the latter half a minute later, and with that his eyes closed again.
Dinkel held up his hand, and for a little space neither he nor his mother stirred. Then said the young doctor, "He is asleep, and if all goes well, as I have every reason to think it will, he won't awake for five or six hours. I will go now, and return between six and seven o'clock."
As already stated, Dr. Banks, when he called as usual in the course of next forenoon, was considerably surprised at finding such a decided improvement in his patient's condition, when, according to all the rules and regulations of medical science, he ought to have been nearly, if not quite, in a state of collapse. "It's merely a flash in the pan--the sudden flare-up of a candle before it drops into darkness," he said to himself. "He's a wonderful old fellow, and I've evidently underrated the strength of his constitution."
But next day, and the day after that, a still further improvement unmistakably manifested itself. Dr. Banks rubbed his nose with his forefinger and was clearly nonplussed. On the fourth morning he was joined by Dr. Mills, who had been expecting from hour to hour to have tidings of the Squire's demise. He and Banks did not fail to discuss the case as they drove over to Stanbrook in the latter's gig, but neither of them could make head or tail of it, and certainly it was difficult for them to believe the evidence of their eyes when, on entering their patient's room, they found him seated in his easy-chair, propped up by cushions, and not only that, but dictating a letter in a firm voice to his secretary, Andry Luce.