"I'm all right."
"Didn't say you weren't. Let's have a look! Turn well round and show yourself ... h'm!"
"Well!—what's the matter?"
"I thought as much! You've been dissipating, my man. Your sort of dissipation! What was it this time? You've been up all night, my good sir! It's no use your trying to deceive me."
"'I will not deceive you, my sweet!'" Mr. Taylor quoted Mrs. Gamp, and was understood. "I chanced upon a bad case of delirium tremens threatening its lawful wife with a knife, and I stayed to see it out. Poor fellow!"
"H'm—why poor fellow?"
"Because I locked him up and went for the doctor round the corner. He said he knew you. Man of the name of Ferris. Good sort of little chap...."
"I know him. Saw him yesterday—came to see a patient here. Well!—what did he say to your man?"
"He never saw him alive. While I was away the poor fellow escaped out of the room, ran a mile and a half through the snow, and pitched himself into a canal-lock.... Oh yes!—he was fished out dead from under the ice...."
"Rather a good job, I should think.... However, perhaps I oughtn't to say that...."