And the flowered dressing-gown and ungartered stockings disappeared through the door into the bed-room, from whence they heard a great souse on the bed, and the bedstead gave a dismal groan.
'Is there;--_is_ there nothing, doctor--for mercy's sake, think--doctor, do--I conjure you--pray think--there must be something'--urged Puddock, imploringly.
'Ay, that's the way, Sir, fellows quacking themselves and one another; when they get frightened, and with good reason, come to us and expect miracles; but as in this case, the quantity was not very much, 'tis not, you see, overpowering, and he _may_ do if he takes what I'll send him.'
Puddock was already at his bedside, shaking his hand hysterically, and tumbling his words out one over the other--
'You're thafe, my dear Thir--_dum thpiro thpero_--he thayth--Dr. Thturk--he can thave you, my dear Thir--my dear lieutenant--my dear O'Flaherty--he can thave you, Thir--thafe and thound, Thir.'
O'Flaherty, who had turned his face to the wall in the bitterness of his situation--for like some other men, he had the intensest horror of death when he came peaceably to his bedside, though ready enough to meet him with a 'hurrah!' and a wave of his rapier, if he arrived at a moment's notice, with due dash and eclat--sat up like a shot, and gaping upon Puddock for a few seconds, relieved himself with a long sigh, a devotional upward roll of the eyes, and some muttered words, of which the little ensign heard only 'blessing,' very fervently, and 'catch me again,' and 'divil bellows it;' and forthwith out came one of the fireworker's long shanks, and O'Flaherty insisted on dressing, shaving, and otherwise preparing as a gentleman and an officer, with great gaiety of heart, to meet his fate on the Fifteen Acres.
In due time arrived the antidote. It was enclosed in a gallipot, and was what I believe they called an electuary. I don't know whether it is an obsolete abomination now, but it looked like brick-dust and treacle, and what it was made of even Puddock could not divine. O'Flaherty, that great Hibernian athlete, unconsciously winced and shuddered like a child at sight of it. Puddock stirred it with the tip of a tea-spoon, and looked into it with inquisitive disgust, and seemed to smell it from a distance, lost for a minute in inward conjecture, and then with a slight bow, pushed it ceremoniously toward his brother in arms.