"The tooth-powder is a success!" thought Percie.
"I am afraid you have been studying a great deal too hard. You should be careful about yourself, Percie, and not overtax your constitution. You should n't burn the—what is it?—the midnight oil, too much, you know." And the Old Boy said to himself, "Bless my life! how I have wronged the poor lad!"
"Oh! I am much better," said Percie, making a show of an attempt at cheerfulness, and thinking that the Old Boy would probably have changed his idea of his son's use of the midnight oil, if he had been one of the wine-party that had tenanted that apartment last night, and had clouded the midnight oil with the fumes of tobacco until the small hours of the morning;—"I am much better, though still on the æger list, and under the Doctor's hands, as you see. But I hope this is my last day of living on slops, for it is not very agreeable fare. I can't ask you to join me; but I will soon get you some thing from the Buttery, or the Confectioner. At any rate, I can give you a glass of something better than this;" and Percie indicated the medicine bottle. "By the way, it is my time for taking it. But, no! I will postpone it for awhile—I think I may throw the Doctor over this once."
"Certainly, my dear Percie," said the Old Boy; "'throw physic to the dogs'—as What's-his-name says in the play—and take a glass of port instead. You look as though you wanted something strengthening. Those doctors are always on the lowering system: it makes good for their trade."
"Well! I really should like a glass of port," said Percie, with the air of a man whom circumstances had compelled to be a stranger to such a luxury: "and I
