istressed."

"Absurd, sir!"

"But I assure you--"

"Tut, tut, sir! don't tell me. I watch that boy as I would an important
case in a court of law. Nothing escapes me, and I say he is much
worse."

"Really, I should be sorry to contradict you, Mr Burne," replied the
professor calmly; "but to me it seems as if this air agreed with him,
and I should have said that, short as the time has been since he left
home, he is better."

"Worse, sir, worse decidedly."

"Really, Mr Burne, I am sorry to differ from you," replied the
professor stiffly; "but I must say that Lawrence is, to my way of
thinking, decidedly improved."

"Pah! Tchah! Absurd!" cried the lawyer; and he went off blowing his
nose.

Another day he met the professor, who had just left Lawrence's side
after sitting and talking with him for some time, and there was an
anxious, care-worn look in his eyes that impressed the sharp lawyer at
once.

"Hallo!" he exclaimed; "what's the matter?"

The professor shook his head.

"Lawrence," he said sadly.

"Eh? Bless me! You don't say so," cried Mr Burne; and he hurried out
into the verandah, which was the lad's favourite place.

There Mr Burne stayed for about a quarter of an hour, and then went
straight to where the professor was writing a low-spirited letter to
Mrs Dunn, in which he had said that he regretted bringing Lawrence
right away into those distant regions, for though Trieste was a large
port, and there was plenty of medical attendance to be obtained, it was
not like being at home.

"I say! Look here!" cried Mr Burne, "you ought to know better, you
know."

"I do not understand you," replied the professor quietly.

"Crying wolf, you know. It's too bad."

"Really," said the professor, who was in one of his dreamy, abstracted
moods, "you are mistaken, Mr Burne. I did not say a word about a
wolf."

"Well, whoever said you did, man?" cried the lawyer impatiently as he
took out his snuff-box and whisked forth a pinch, flourishing some of
the fine dry dust about where he stood. "Can't you, a university man,
understand metaphors--shepherd boy calling wolf when there was nothing
the matter? The patient's decidedly better, sir."

"Really, Mr Burne--_er_--_tchishew_--_er_--_tchishew_!"

Old Mr Burne stood looking on, smiling grimly, as the professor had a
violent fit of sneezing, and in mocking tones held out his snuff-box and
said:

"Have a good pinch? Stop the sneezing. Ah! that's be