"You're afraid to go back now, ain't you, since you've stayed so long?" he asked, in a tone meant to encourage the child's confidence.
"Indeed I am. Mr. Sharp will be almost sure to beat me."
"What a very devil incarnate the man must be!" muttered Doctor R—— to himself, taking three or four strides across the floor. "I shall have to take the little fellow home, and brow-beat his master, I suppose," he continued. Then addressing Henry, he said, aloud—
"Well, I'll take you home to him in my carriage, and settle all that for you, my little man; so don't be frightened."
Acting upon this resolution, Doctor R—— soon drove up before the hatter's shop, and, lifting out Henry himself, led him into the presence of his astonished master.
"What's the matter now?" asked the latter, roughly, and with a forbidding aspect of countenance.
"The matter is simply this, sir," responded Doctor R——, firmly. "I found this little boy of yours on the street absolutely unable to get along a step farther; and on taking him into the drug store above, and examining his feet, I found them in a most shocking condition! Why, sir, in twelve hours mortification would have commenced, when nothing could have saved his life but the amputation of both limbs." The sober earnestness of Doctor R—— caused Sharp to feel some alarm, and he said—
"I had no idea, doctor, that he was as bad as that."
"Well, he is, I can assure you, and it is a fortunate thing that I happened to come across him. Why, I haven't seen so bad a case of chilblains these ten years."
"What ought I to do for him, doctor?" asked Sharp, in real concern.