What do you say?"
"I dare not--I dare not. Pray put the question to _him_."
"I will," said the doctor; and accordingly he did put it to him with a
good deal of feeling and gentleness, and the answer rather surprised him.
Weak as he was, Colonel Clifford's dull eye flashed, and he half raised
himself on his elbow. "What a question to put to a soldier!" said he.
"Why, let us fight, to be sure. I thought it was twenty to one--five to
three? I have often won the rubber with five to three against me."
"Ah!" said Dr. Garner, "these are the patients that give the doctor a
chance." Then he turned to Baker. "Have you any good champagne in the
house--not sweet, and not too dry, and full of fire?"
"Irroy's Carte d'Or," suggested the patient, entering into the business
with a certain feeble alacrity that showed his gout had not always been
unconnected with imprudence in diet.
Baker was sent for the champagne. It was brought and opened, and the
patient drank some of it fizzing. When he had drank what he could, his
eyes twinkled, and he said,
"That's a hair of a dog that has often bitten me.
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