"
He was talking in the rapid slurring way of a man who
has trouble coming. I looked at his chart, and saw that
he was over 102 degrees. His pulse rub-a-dubbed under my
fingers, and his skin sent a glow into my hand.
"Any symptoms?" I asked, sitting down on the side of
his bed.
"Tongue like a nutmeg-grater," said he, thrusting it
out. "Frontal headache, renal pains, no appetite, and a
mouse nibbling inside my left elbow. That's as far as
we've got at present."
"I'll tell you what it is, Cullingworth," said I.
"You have a touch of rheumatic fever, and you will have
to lie by for a bit."
"Lie by be hanged!" he cried. "I've got a hundred
people to see to-day. My boy, I must be down there if I
have the rattle in my throat. I didn't build up a
practice to have it ruined by a few ounces of lactic
acid."
"James dear, you can easily build up another one,"
said his wife, in her cooing voice. "You must do what
Dr. Munro tells you."
"Well," said I, "you'll want looking after, and your
practice will want looking after, and I am quite ready to
do both. But I won't take the responsibility unless
you give me your word that you will do what you are
told."
"If I'm to have any doctoring it must come from you,
laddie," he said; "for if I was to turn my toes up in the
public square, there's not a man here who would do more
than sign my certificate. By Crums, they might get the
salts and oxalic acid mixed up if they came to treat me,
for there's no love lost between us.
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