Page:How I Met a Very Ignorant Practitioner.pdf/3

444 a very amusing evening listening to his yarns of sea-life, for it presently came out that he had spent several years in the "South American Steam Navigation Co.'s" service.

For some reason which he did not disclose, he appeared to have grown restless and dissatisfied with his present lot. As the evening wore he grew so far communicative as to tell me that his absence would not be all holiday-making.

"I'm going up to London to see if Adamson can't sell this practice," said he.

"Going to sea again?" I suggested.

"Well, no; not exactly. Don't know what I shall do when I clear out. Do nothing for a little while, p'raps. Not that I'm overworked here. You'll have nothing to do but these two visits, so far as I know."

"You're wanting me for a fortnight, aren't you?" I replied.

"Well, yes, I think so. I may take a run over to Paris for a day or two while Adamson is finding someone to buy the practice. If you want to know anything just write to me, 'care of Adamson,' but I don't expect I shall be far away."

As he remarked, he certainly did not seem to be overworked. From the time I arrived in the late afternoon until we went to bed about eleven, no patients put in an appearance. Like the rest of the house, my bedroom was furnished with a Spartan simplicity which I put down to Inns's pronounced nautical tastes. But I liked it all the better for that, and turning in, I slept soundly until wakened in the morning by Inns himself. He told me not to hurry down to breakfast, as he had to catch an early train. The little pony-cart in which he did his rounds was already waiting, and he drove away after bidding me farewell in the unconventional style which marked all his actions. The same elderly woman who had waited on us in the evening gave me breakfast, and with the groom, or page (his were composite duties, as I found), seemed to make up the entire establishment.

I dawdled over breakfast, for there seemed little else to fill up the time with, and a newspaper was unheard of in such a place. The trap returned by the time I had finished, but I sent out word that I preferred to cycle rather than drive, and after a smoke I sallied out to pay my two visits. I found the miller in his house on one side of the square formed by the mill and a long stretch of granaries. He lay on a sofa by an open window, from which he was able to superintend the unloading of some grain. He looked hale and hearty enough, and greeted me with a cordiality which scarcely surprised me when I remembered his wish to have a "second opinion."

"And how do you find yourself to-day, Mr. Ikin?" I asked, after listening patiently to the long history of his troubles.

"Oh, I'm in the same miserable condition," he said with an air of profound self-pity.

"No better?"

"Not a bit!"

"But you've got no cough now," I urged.

"Never had one."

I gasped. And he had had inflammation of the lungs, too.

"Dr. Inns tells me you had no particular fever."

"No; he used to take my temperature at first, but the thermometer never showed anything, however long I sat on it. There it is; would you like to try it?" He pointed to an ordinary household thermometer (the shilling kind, made in Germany) that hung on the wall! It was lucky he did so, for in another second I should have given Inns away by producing my own neat little "thirty second" clinical thermometer from my waistcoat.

Honestly, I would have given a sovereign at that moment to be able to laugh. At the risk of apoplexy, I managed to control the emotion, but I am sure I must have turned purple with the effort. If only the miller would have made a joke, even the feeblest, so that I could have had an excuse to explode comfortably! But he was dismally serious, so to save the situation I insisted on thoroughly overhauling him, finding nothing amiss but dyspepsia and a general flabbiness, the result of want of exercise. By the time I had finished, the more acute spasms of my hilarity were vanquished, and assuring him that his lungs were quite sound, I ventured no opinion as to what their former condition might have been. As he was taking no medicine, having refused further dosing in disgust, there was no treatment for me to alter; but I did the best I could by strictly enjoining his wife to attend to his diet, and to send him out for a daily walk. On the whole, I got over the interview better than I could have expected, but never prisoner enjoyed his freedom more heartily than did I as I rode from the house, wobbling dangerously with pent-up mirth. Indeed, as soon as I had