As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man standing at the trooper’s elbow and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper’s face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper.
“Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service.”
With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole building at his visitor’s disposal.
“I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?”
Allan is quite sure of it.
“Because, sir,” says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, “we have had enough of that.”
His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. “Still I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan after repeating his former assurance, “that the boy is deplorably low and reduced and that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover.”
“Do you consider him in present danger, sir?” inquires the trooper.
“Yes, I fear so.”