They have no qualified surgeon, I believe: but the
second lieutenant, young Couch of Polperro, is almost out of his
articles and ready to proceed to Guy's. A clever fellow, too, they
tell me."
"You understand that if I fail you, it will be through no want of
zeal?"
"My friend"--the Major turned on him with a smile at once magnanimous
and tender--"I believe you ask nothing better than to accompany me."
"To the death!" said the Doctor, in a low voice and fervently.
Then, after a pause full of emotion, "Your dispositions are all
taken?"
"All, I believe. Chinn has drawn up a new will for me, which I have
signed, and it lies at this moment in my deed-box. I took the
liberty to appoint you an executor."
"You would not ask me to survive you!" (O Friendship! O exemplars
of a sterner age! O Rome! O Cato!) "Not to mention," went on the
Doctor, "that I must be by five or six years your senior, and in the
ordinary course of events--"
Major Hymen dismissed the ordinary course of events with a wave of
the hand.
"I ask it as a personal favour."
"It is an honour then, and I accede."
"For the rest, I am keeping that fellow Smellie on the _qui vive_.
For three days past he has been promenading the cliffs with his
spy-glass. I would not lightly depreciate any man, but Smellie has
one serious fault--he is ambitious."
"Such men are to be found in every walk of life.
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