Page:Arthur Machen - The Hill of Dreams.djvu/130

THE HILL OF DREAMS The doctor had the weakness of these terrible puns, dragged headlong into the conversation. He sometimes exhibited them before Mrs. Gervase, who would smile in a faint and dignified manner, and say:

'Ah, I see. Very amusing indeed. We had an old coachman once who was very clever, I believe, at that sort of thing, but Mr. Gervase was obliged to send him away, the laughter of the other domestics was so very boisterous.'

Lucian laughed, not boisterously, but good-humouredly, at the doctor's joke. He liked Burrows, feeling that he was a man and not an automatic gabbling machine.

'You look a little pulled down,' said the doctor, when Lucian rose to go. 'No, you don't want any medicine. Plenty of beef and beer will do you more good than drugs. I daresay it's the hot weather that has thinned you a bit. Oh, you'll be all right again in a month.'

As Lucian strolled out of the town on his way home, he passed a small crowd of urchins assembled at the corner of an orchard. They were enjoying themselves immensely. The 'healthy' boy, the same whom he had seen some weeks ago operating on a cat, seemed to have recognised 120