"'Pooh!' says I; 'he's often so, and grows so glum nowadays that I
will cut his acquaintance altogether if he does not improve.'
"'He drinks awful hard,' says F - -; 'may be he's got a fit of the
delirium-tremulous. There is no telling what he may be up to at this
minute.'
"My mind misgave me, too, so I e'en takes the oars, and pushes out,
right upon Brian's track; and, by the Lord Harry! if I did not find
him, upon my landing on the opposite shore, lying wallowing in his
blood with his throat cut. 'Is that you, Brian?' says I, giving him
a kick with my foot, to see if he was alive or dead. 'What on earth
tempted you to play me and F - - such a dirty, mean trick, as to go
and stick yourself like a pig, bringing such a discredit upon the
house? - and you so far from home and those who should nurse you?'
"I was so mad with him, that (saving your presence, ma'am) I swore
awfully, and called him names that would be ondacent to repeat here;
but he only answered with groans and a horrid gurgling in his
throat. 'It's a choking you are,' said I, 'but you shan't have your
own way, and die so easily, either, if I can punish you by keeping
you alive.' So I just turned him upon his stomach, with his head
down the steep bank; but he still kept choking and growing black in
the face."
Layton then detailed some particulars of his surgical practice which
it is not necessary to repeat.
