Part 5 (2/2)
”Better, sir? decidedly worse. I have been watching him this morning, and he is distinctly more feeble.”
”Why, my dear Mr Burne, he took my arm half an hour ago, and walked up and down that verandah without seeming in the least distressed.”
”Absurd, sir!”
”But I a.s.sure you--”
”Tut, tut, sir! don't tell me. I watch that boy as I would an important case in a court of law. Nothing escapes me, and I say he is much worse.”
”Really, I should be sorry to contradict you, Mr Burne,” replied the professor calmly; ”but to me it seems as if this air agreed with him, and I should have said that, short as the time has been since he left home, he is better.”
”Worse, sir, worse decidedly.”
”Really, Mr Burne, I am sorry to differ from you,” replied the professor stiffly; ”but I must say that Lawrence is, to my way of thinking, decidedly improved.”
”Pah! Tchah! Absurd!” cried the lawyer; and he went off blowing his nose.
Another day he met the professor, who had just left Lawrence's side after sitting and talking with him for some time, and there was an anxious, care-worn look in his eyes that impressed the sharp lawyer at once.
”Hallo!” he exclaimed; ”what's the matter?”
The professor shook his head.
”Lawrence,” he said sadly.
”Eh? Bless me! You don't say so,” cried Mr Burne; and he hurried out into the verandah, which was the lad's favourite place.
There Mr Burne stayed for about a quarter of an hour, and then went straight to where the professor was writing a low-spirited letter to Mrs Dunn, in which he had said that he regretted bringing Lawrence right away into those distant regions, for though Trieste was a large port, and there was plenty of medical attendance to be obtained, it was not like being at home.
”I say! Look here!” cried Mr Burne, ”you ought to know better, you know.”
”I do not understand you,” replied the professor quietly.
”Crying wolf, you know. It's too bad.”
”Really,” said the professor, who was in one of his dreamy, abstracted moods, ”you are mistaken, Mr Burne. I did not say a word about a wolf.”
”Well, whoever said you did, man?” cried the lawyer impatiently as he took out his snuff-box and whisked forth a pinch, flouris.h.i.+ng some of the fine dry dust about where he stood. ”Can't you, a university man, understand metaphors--shepherd boy calling wolf when there was nothing the matter? The patient's decidedly better, sir.”
”Really, Mr Burne--_er_--_tchishew_--_er_--_tchishew_!”
Old Mr Burne stood looking on, smiling grimly, as the professor had a violent fit of sneezing, and in mocking tones held out his snuff-box and said:
”Have a good pinch? Stop the sneezing. Ah! that's better,” he added, as the professor finished off with a tremendous burst. ”Your head will be clear now, and you can understand what I say. That boy's getting well.”
”I wish I could think so,” said the professor, sniffing so very quietly that, as if to give him a lesson, his companion blew off one of his blasts, with the result that a waiter hurried into the room to see what was wrong.
”Think? there is no occasion to think so. He is mending fast, sir; and if you have any doubt about it, and cannot trust in the opinion of a man of the world, go and watch him, and see how interested he seems in all that is going on. Why, a fortnight ago he lay back in his chair dreaming and thinking of nothing but himself. Now he is beginning to forget that there is such a person. He's better, sir, better.”
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