"Come in, doctor! Yes, I'm better. But there's a deal o' bubbling in my chest. It's all them toobes. If I could but cut the phlegm I'd be right. Can't ye give me something to cut the phlegm?"
The doctor, a grave-faced young man, put his fingers to the furrowed, blue-corded wrist.
"You must be careful," he said; "you must take no liberties."
The thin tide of life seemed to thrill rather than to throb under his finger.
The old man chuckled.
"I've got brother Jarge's girl to look after me now. She'll see I don't break barracks or do what I hadn't ought to; why, darn my skin, I knew something was amiss!"
"With what?"
"Why, with them soldiers. You saw them pass, doctor--eh? They'd forgot their stocks. Not one on 'em had his stock on." He croaked and chuckled for a long time over his discovery. "It wouldn't ha' done for the Dook!" he muttered. "No, by Jimini! the Dook would ha' had a word there."
The doctor smiled.
"Well, you are doing very well," said he. "I'll look in once a week or so, and see how you are." As Norah followed him to the door, he beckoned
