THE DOCTOR'S MIXTURE.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER XIII. THE DOCTOR AT MESS.

ON arriving at the inn, Doctor
Findlater was met by his new friend, the
surgeon, and was taken up-stairs.

"Of course I could deal with the case
myself; but as the young man comes from
these parts, I thought it more proper——"

"Why, who is he?" said the Doctor,
"not young Leader? No! Why you
know I'm the family physician—attended
his sister in consumption—it was with my
sanction we had to send her away to
Madeary."

"I thought it was right to call you in.
It is so very odd. Fell down at the mess-
table in a fit—foaming at the mouth."

"To be sure, to be sure," said the Doctor,
wisely, "the very thing. That's the Leader
touch all over. Heat of the march coming
on top of constitutional weakness; my
dear friend, you and I, who have tramped
the hospitals till our legs are weary, know
what a mixture that makes."

They found the young man lying on the
bed, an hospital orderly applying remedies.
The Doctor had taken Doctor Gamgee's
measure with what is called half an eye;
"A poor creature," he said; and at once took
the command. Young Leader was a clean-
faced youth, with a very black moustache
and a foolish retiring chin. "You're weak,
a trifle weak, my boy," was the Doctor's
silent criticism. Under the joint direction
of the two doctors remedies were applied,
and Doctor Gamgee going away for a short
time, the Docter soliloquised within
himself. He had experience in "weak" cases,
and revelled in them.  "Come into the
world with something soft up here," touching
his own head,"maybe nipping on the
top of the heat of the march, and that
again on the top of the conganital
weakness?"  And he put his face down to the
young man's mouth.  "Wonderful the way
our ends are shaped. Who'll deny a
Providence after this?  Polly, my sweet,
you've been a dutiful child, and I'll not
forget you."

After the usual remedies, the Doctor
was going away, quite the proprietor
of the case. "Now, see here, Gamgee,
I know you, and I am proud of
anything coming from the R.C.S.E.  It's a
glory to us all.  But when I'm at home
in the geography of the human subject, its
in cases of this sort. I have the advantage
in local knowledge, d'ye see."

"O! Of course, knowing the constitution
of the family."

"Of course." They were passing the
mess-room door, and the Doctor looked
wistfully at it and listened to the
boisterous sounds.  "Now, I think it would
be only the right thing if I saw the colonel
a moment."

The other brought him in. There was
a silence and stare as the two entered,
Doctor Findlater with a cordial smiling
sympathy on his face. Colonel Bouchier,
busy and inflated, but well braced and
hooped, said in short barks: "By all
means. 'Be sure. Sit down here. Glasses
for Doctor Findlater."

The Doctor, unabashed, and taking in
the two lines of officers, seriatim, with
obsequious and friendly glances, leisurely
insinuated himself into a place next the
colonel. He had that strange oily smiling
look on his face, common to many of his
countrymen, as if in possession of some
racy joke which he thought it better not
to deliver. "Oh, I'm at home here,
colonel," he said almost pathetically; "every
square inch of this mahogany could tell its
little story about me."

"No doubt—indeed. Now, what'll you
take?"

"Not a drop—colonel, if I was to be
transported on the spot—before business."
And he dropped his voice and began his
most voluble whispering. "Know the lad's
constitution—write to the family at once
—serious responsibility lying on us both,"
were the fragments caught by listeners.

"God bless you, no!" the colonel said,
bluntly. "Man's head only weak—too
much wine."

"I'm at home in these things," the Doctor
went on. "Anything conganital. Now what
we ask is quiet for the lad. Your own
sense will tell you, colonel, that a common
pothouse like this is no place for a sick lad,
with a lot of gay, pleasant boys tearing up
and down for the bare life. No, no, the
way is this: I'll see to a snug lodging
tomorrow by cock-crow, and you, colonel, as
your pureogative is, may as well write to
the boy's relations in town."

Such comments as "queer card," "rum
cove," "great fun!" went up and down
with many amused looks. But the Doctor,
having now got business off his mind—
which, he said always stuck in his chest
like a bit of hard cheese, began to take the
officers in hand one by one, now with a