ded him to keep his eye
on the sun, lest he should lose his way, and hastened home; for it just
occurred to me that I had forgotten to visit Louis Blanc, who cut his
foot with an axe yesterday, and whose wound required redressing, so I
left the poor youth to learn from experience."

"Pray, who did you leave to that delightful fate?" asked Mr Wilson,
issuing from his bedroom and approaching the stove.

Mr Wilson was a middle-aged, good-humoured, active man, who filled the
onerous offices of superintendent of the men, trader of furs, seller of
goods to the Indians, and general factotum.

"Our friend Hamilton," answered the doctor, in reply to his question.
"I think he is, without exception, the most egregious nincompoop I ever
saw. Just as I passed the long swamp on my way home, I met him crashing
through the bushes in hot pursuit of a rabbit, the track of which he
mistook for a fox. Poor fellow! he had been out since breakfast, and
only shot a brace of ptarmigan, although they are as thick as bees and
quite tame. `But then, do you see,' said he, in excuse, `I'm so very
short-sighted! Would you believe it, I've blown fifteen lumps of snow
to atoms, in the belief that they were ptarmigan!' and then he rushed
off again."

"No doubt," said Mr Wilson, smiling, "the lad is very green, but he's a
good fellow for all that."

"I'll answer for that," said the accountant; "I found him over at the
men's houses this morning doing _your_ work for you, doctor."

"How so?" inquired the disciple of Aesculapius.

"Attending to your wounded man, Louis Blanc, to be sure; and he seemed
to speak to him as wisely as if he had walked the hospitals, and
regularly passed for an M.D."

"Indeed!" said the doctor, with a mischievous grin. "Then I must pay
him off for interfering with my patients."

"Ah, doctor, you're too fond of practical jokes. You never let slip an
opportunity of `paying off' your friends for something or other. It's a
bad habit. Practical jokes are very bad things--shockingly bad," said
Mr Wilson, as he put on his fur cap, and wound a thick shawl round his
throat, preparatory to leaving the room.

As Mr Wilson gave utterance to this opinion, he passed Harry
Somerville, who was still staring at the fire in deep mental
abstraction, and, as he did so, gave his tilted chair a very slight push
backwards with his finger--an action which caused Harry to toss up his
legs, grasp convulsively with both hands at empty a