“My! you’re a good ’un to me!” said the boy. “Think of that there Medlock—”
“Don’t let’s think of anything so unpleasant,” said Reginald, seeing that even this short talk had excited his patient unduly. “Let me see if I can make the bed more comfortable, and then, if you like, I can read to you. How would you like that?”
The boy beamed his gratitude, and Reginald, after doing his best to smooth the wretched bed and make him comfortable, produced the Pilgrim’s Progress and settled down to read.
“That there Robinson ain’t a bad ’un,” said Love, before the reading began; “I read ’im while I was a-waitin’ for you. But ’e ain’t so good as the Christian. Read about that there pallis ag’in, gov’nor.”
And Reginald read it—more than once.
The evening closed in, the room grew dark, and he shut the book. The boy was already asleep, tossing and moaning to himself, sometimes seeming to wake for a moment, but dropping off again before he could tell what he wanted or what was wrong with him.
Once or twice Reginald moistened his parched mouth with water, but as the evening wore on the boy became so much worse that he felt, at all hazards, he must seek help.
“I must bring a doctor to see him,” said he to the landlady; “he’s so ill.”
“You’ll bring no doctor—unless you want to see the boy chucked out in the road!” said she. “The idea! just when my lodgers will be coming home to bed too!”
“It’s only eight o’clock; no one will come till ten. There’ll be plenty of time.”