cally. "No; I
don't think he did it intentionally. If I did I'd send him about his
business this very night. There!--lie down and go to sleep; it will
take off the giddiness."

I lay quite still, and as I did so Old Brownsmith seemed to swell up
like the genii who came out of the sealed jar the fisherman caught
instead of fish. Then he grew cloudy and filled the room, and then
there was the creaking of baskets, and I saw things clearly again. Old
Brownsmith was gone, and the soft evening air came through the open
window by the pots of geraniums.

My eyes were half-closed and I saw things rather dimly, particularly one
pot on the window-sill, which, instead of being red and regular
pot-shaped, seemed to be rounder and light-coloured, and to have a
couple of eyes, and grinning white teeth. There were no leaves above it
nor scarlet blossoms, but a straw hat upside-down, with fuzzy hair
standing up out of it; and the eyes kept on staring at me till it seemed
to be Shock! Then it grew dark and I must have fallen asleep, wondering
what that boy could have to do with my accident.

Perhaps I came to again--I don't know; for it may have been a dream that
the old gentleman came softly back and dabbed my head gently with a
towel, and that the towel was stained with blood.

Of course it was a dream that I was out in the East with my father, who
was not hurt in the skirmish, but it was I who received the wound, which
bled a good deal; and somehow I seemed to have been hurt in the
shoulder, which ached and felt strained and wrenched. But all became
blank again and I lay some time asleep.

When I opened my eyes again I found that I was being hurt a good deal by
the doctor, who was seeing to my injuries. Old Brownsmith and Ike were
both in the room, and I could see Shock peeping round the big _arbor
vitae_ outside the window to see what was going on.

The doctor was holding a glass to my lips, while Old Brownsmith raised
me up.

"Drink that, my boy," said the doctor. "That's the way!--capital! isn't
it?"

I shuddered and looked up at him reproachfully, for the stuff he had
given me to drink tasted like a mixture of soap and smelling-salts; and
I said so.

"Good description of the volatile alkali, my lad," he said, laughing.
"There!--you'll soon be all right. I've strapped up your wound."

"My wound, sir!" I said, wonderingly.

"To be sure; didn't you know that you had a cut upon your forehead?"

I shook my h