or.
"I've seen you two or three times in the last fortnight."

"Yes, I enjoy the walk."

"Well, look me up whenever you like, you know. I am often in just at this
time, and a chat with a human being isn't bad, now and then. It's a
change for me; I'm often afraid I shall lose my patients."

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 coachmen 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 my 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 recognized his
selfishness in keeping his amusements to himself. He had found a poor
lost puppy, a little creature with bright pitiful eyes, almost human in
their fond, friendly gaze. It was not a well-bred little dog; it was
certainly not that famous puppy "by Vick out of Wasp"; it had rough hair
and a foolish long tail which it wagged beseechingly, at once deprecating
severity and asking kindness. The poor animal had evidently been used to
gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face, and give a leap,
fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and cower a
moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle
and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was
quite a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a
plan of his own which he brought before the leader, a stout and sturdy
youth.

"Drown him! What be you thinkin' of, mum?" he was saying. "'Tain't no
sport at all. You shut your mouth, gwaes. Be you goin' to ask your mother
for the boiling-water