THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER XV. DOCTOR AND PATIENT.

ON the road the Doctor met Colonel
Bouchier. He took that officer's arm quite
familiarly, and turned to walk a little way
with him. "I wanted to ask you, Colonel
Bouchier, as a man that knows the world,
and has seen a deal of human nature in
the regiment, what had best be done about
that poor lad's family?"

"I was going to telegraph to them
today," said the colonel. "Only my duty,
you know."

"Quite your duty, colonel, and that
settles it. The only thing was Madeary, a
long way off—and to break up a family
with a dying daughter, a poor girl with
about twopence-halfpenny worth of lungs,
and bring them scrambling over here for a
little bit of sickness——"

"But, bless my soul! you don't call
that a little bit of sickness, do you?
Why, the boy had a fit, Gamgee says, and
shaved D. T. very closely."

"Oh, good, very good," the Doctor said,
bursting into a most natural roar of
laughter. "I can't help it! But 'shaving
D. T.!' They told me last night some of
your jokes, colonel—the very first water!
Oh, too good!"

"Oh, nonsense," the colonel said, much
pleased with the compliment; "but you
know, my dear Findlater, the lad had a fit
—regular knock-down fit. I know what I
suspect," and the colonel raised his hand
significantly to his lips.

"Maybe," said the Doctor. "But now,
as a personal matter, would ye mind, my
dear colonel, just staying your hand for a
day or two? You see, we of the profession
are sensitive in these things, and Gamgee
runs one way, and I the other; and now I'll
lay you a gallon of my old whisky to a
bottle of your mess champagne, I have
him all right to-morrow or next day. If
not, you can blaze away through every
telegraph in the kingdom! By the way,
contingent on the bet, you'll let me send
you up a thimbleful of that same nectar
for your own private consumption? I will
then.

The colonel went his way, and later
spoke very handsomely of Findlater as "a
good, droll sort of fellow, uncommonly
knowing, and all that," while the Doctor
went in to visit his patient.

The young officer was in bed, attended
by a gaunt, stiff soldier servant, Baker,
whom the Doctor condemned from the first
moment that he saw him: for the precise
reason that he did not relish the Doctor.
The latter began with what he called
"emollient treatment," the way he began
with every human creature he came in
contact with; but this only irritated the
subject. Young Cecil had a wild stare in
his eye, and could scarcely articulate. His
face seemed to be "weak in the muscles,"
and was inclined to hang down. An impartial
person might wonder how the Doctor, in
the face of such evidence, could maintain
that he had not received some severe shock,
and would wonder still more to hear what
the Doctor was now saying.

"My dear sir, we must take care of you.
Now, how do you find yourself? Tell me
frankly, and don't be afraid. I'm a man
of the world, and I can allow for men of
the world. Why, bless me! if we can't
put ourselves in other people's places,
where are we all to be?"

The young man made some indistinct