"
"No, sir. The thermometer bursts at an an' ten. I'll bring you the
doctor."
Mr. Lavender was about to utter a protest when he reflected that all
public men had doctors.
"About the bulletin?" he said faintly.
"What?" ejaculated Mrs. Petty, whose face seemed to Mr. Lavender to
have become all cheekbones, eyes, and shadows. Joe never said a about a
bullet. Where? and however did you get it in?
"I did not say 'bullet in'," murmured Mr. Lavender closing his eyes! "I
said bulletin. They have it."
At this mysterious sentence Mrs. Petty lifted her hands, and muttering
the word "Ravin'!" hastened from the room. No sooner had she gone,
however, than Blink, whose memory was perfect, rose, and going to the
window placed her forepaws on the sill. Seeing her bone shining on the
lawn below, with that disregard of worldly consequence which she shared
with all fine characters, she leaped through. The rattle of the Venetian
blind disturbed Mr. Lavender from the lethargy to which he had reverted.
"Mr. John Lavender passed a good night," he thought, "but his condition
is still critical." And in his disordered imagination he seemed to see
people outside Tube stations, standing stock-still in the middle of the
traffic, reading that bulletin in the evening papers.
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