tell you what I think, professor,” was the reply. “It seems to me that the boy is a little sore and upset with his parting from his old nurse. Milk-soppish, but natural to one in his state. He wants to get right away, so as to forget the trouble in new impressions. Then, as you see, the journey so far has not hurt him, and he feels well enough to go on. Sign, sir, that nature says he is strong enough, so don’t thwart him. Seems to me, sir—snuff, snuff, snuff—that the way to do him good is to let him have his own way, so long as he doesn’t want to do anything silly. Forward!”
So they went forward, a couple of the steamer’s men lifting Lawrence carefully along the gangway and settling him in a comfortable part of the deck, which he preferred to going below; and ten minutes later the machinery made the boat quiver, the pier seemed to be running away, and the professor said quietly: “Good-bye to England.”
The sea proved to be more rough than it had seemed from the pier, and, out of about seventy passengers, it was not long before quite sixty had gone below, leaving the deck very clear; and the professor, who kept walking up and down, while the lawyer occupied a seat near Lawrence, kept watching the invalid narrowly.
But there was no sign of illness. The lad looked terribly weak and delicate, but his eyes were bright, and the red spots on his cheeks were unchanged.
“I say, Preston,” said the lawyer, when they had been to sea about a quarter of an hour, “you look very pale: if you’d like to go below I’ll stay with him.”
“Thanks, no,” was the reply; “I prefer the deck. How beautiful the chalky coast looks, Lawrence!”
“Yes, lovely,” was the reply; “but I was trying to look forward to see France. I want to see health. Looking back seems like being ill.”
The professor nodded, and said that the French coast would soon be very plain, and he stalked up and down, a magnificent specimen of humanity, with his great beard blown about by the wind, which sought in vain to play with his closely-cut hair.
“I’m sure you had better go below, professor. You look quite white,” said the lawyer again; but Mr. Preston laughed.
“I am quite well,” he said; and he took another turn up and down to look at the silvery foam churned up by the beating paddles.
“Look here!” cried the lawyer again, as the professor came and stood talking to Lawrence; “had you not better go down?”
“No. Why go down to a cabin full of sick people, when I am enjoying the fresh air, and am quite well?”
“But are you really quite well?”
“Never better in my life.”
“Then it’s too bad, sir,” cried the lawyer. “I’ve been waiting to see you give up, and if you will not, I must, for there’s something wrong with this boat.”
“Nonsense! One of the best boats on the line.”
“Then, there’s something wrong with me. I can’t enjoy my snuff, and it’s all nonsense for this boy to be called an invalid. I’m the invalid, sir, and I am horribly ill. Help me below, there’s a good fellow.”
Mr. Burne looked so deplorably miserable, and at the same time so comic, that it was impossible to avoid smiling, and as he saw this he stamped his foot.
“Laughing at me, eh? Both of you. Now, look here. I know you both feel so poorly that you don’t know what to do, and I’ll stop up on deck and watch you out of spite.”
“Nonsense! I could not help smiling,” said the professor good-humouredly. “Let me help you down.”
“Thank you, no,” said the lawyer taking off his hat to wipe his moist brow, and then putting it on again, wrong way first. “I’m going to stop on deck, sir—to stop on deck.”
He seemed to be making a tremendous effort to master the qualmish feeling that had attacked him, and in this case determination won.
A night at Boulogne, and at breakfast-time next morning Lawrence seemed no worse for the journey, so they went on at once to Paris, where a day’s rest was considered advisable, and then, the preliminaries having been arranged, the train was entered once more, and after two or three stoppages to avoid over-wearying the patient, Trieste was reached, where a couple of days had to be passed before the arrival of the steamer which was to take them to Smyrna, and perhaps farther, though the professor was of opinion that it might be wise to make that the starting-place for the interior.
But when the steamer arrived a delay of five days more ensued before a start was made; and all this time the invalid’s companions watched him anxiously.
It was in these early days a difficult thing to decide, and several times over the professor and Mr. Burne nearly came to an open rupture—one sufficiently serious to spoil the prospects of future friendly feeling.
But these little tiffs always took place unknown to Lawrence, who remained in happy ignorance of what was going on.
The disagreements generally happened something after this fashion.
Lawrence would be seated in one of the verandahs of the hotel enjoying the soft warm sea-breeze, and gazing out at the scene glowing in all the brightness of a southern sun, when the old lawyer would approach the table where, out of the lad’s sight and hearing, the professor was seated writing.
The first notice the latter had of his fellow-traveller’s approach would be the loud snapping of the snuff-box, which was invariably followed by a loud snuffling noise, and perhaps by a stentorian blast. Then the lawyer would lean his hand upon the table where the professor was writing with:
“Really, my dear sir, you might put away your pens and ink for a bit. I’ve left mine behind. Here, I want to talk to you.”
The professor politely put down his pen, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
“Hah! that’s better,” said Mr. Burne. “Now we can talk. I wanted to speak to you about that boy.”
“I am all attention,” said the professor.
“Well, sir, there’s a good German physician here as well as the English one. Don’t you think we ought to call both in, and let them have a consultation?”
“What about?” said the professor calmly.
“About, sir? Why, re Lawrence.”
“But he seems certainly better, and we have Doctor Snorter’s remedies if anything is necessary.”
“Better, sir? decidedly worse. I have been watching him this morning, and he is distinctly more feeble.”
“Why, my dear Mr. Burne, he took my arm half an hour ago, and walked up and down that verandah without seeming in the least distressed.”
“Absurd, sir!”
“But I assure you—”
“Tut, tut, sir! don’t tell me. I watch that boy as I would an important case in a court of law. Nothing escapes me, and I say he is much worse.”
