Oh! I must examine
more closely into these symptoms."
"Softly, my good friend, softly," said the youth, falling back on his
pillow, and losing some of that color which alarmed his companion. "I
believe, in extracting the ball, you did for me all that is required. I
am free from pain and only weak, I do assure you."
"Captain Singleton," said the surgeon, with heat, "it is presumptuous in
you to pretend to tell your medical attendant when you are free from
pain. If it be not to enable us to decide in such matters, of what avail
the lights of science? For shame, George, for shame! Even that perverse
fellow, John Lawton, could not behave with more obstinacy."
His patient smiled, as he gently repulsed his physician in an attempt to
undo the bandages, and with a returning glow to his cheeks, inquired,--
"Do, Archibald,"--a term of endearment that seldom failed to soften the
operator's heart,--"tell me what spirit from heaven has been gliding
around my apartment, while I lay pretending to sleep?"
"If anyone interferes with my patients," cried the doctor, hastily, "I
will teach them, spirit or no spirit, what it is to meddle with another
man's concerns."
"Tut--my dear fellow, there was no interference made, nor any intended.
See," exhibiting the bandages, "everything is as you left it,--but it
glided about the room with the grace of a fairy and the tenderness of
an angel.
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