MARLBOROUGH COLLEGE. 41 



bill of health, unfortunatel)- for us, he deputed an assistant of the 

 Jack Hopkins stamp to attend the surgery, and this youth presently 

 came striding in, and greeted us with such a loud " Hulloa ! " that 

 had we been suffering from some nervous disease, it would have 

 done us quite as much good as an electric shock. After running his 

 eye over us for some moments, he curtl}^ demanded from my 

 companion information as to what ailed him, and receiving the 

 answer, which we had previously agreed upon, " A headache and a 

 pain in my side," he burst out laughing, and turning to me, said he 

 would go bail that I had a similar complaint. With a slight groan 

 I admitted that his clever diagnosis was correct, feeling all the time 

 that some terrible disaster was impending, and so it proved to be. 

 For retreating into an inner closet where the drugs were kept, he 

 presentl}' re-appeared with two formidable-looking glasses, each filled 

 with a dark and nauseous draught, which, nolens, volens, he made 

 us swallow, whilst adding insult to injury, he kept up a continuous 

 peal of laughter, until finally we found ourselves ejected from the 

 door. 



Although our interview with the doctor ended so disastrously 

 to us both, we thought we would have another trj' before giving up 

 all hope of getting away from school, and admitting the truth of the 

 Eastern proverb, Takdir se lara nahin jata, or "It is useless to 

 contend against our fate." So my brother scrawled a letter home, 

 saying, that from what he had observed, I was evidently in a very 

 critical condition as regards my health, and unless we were both 

 removed from school at once, our people might fear the worst. 

 This letter, which subsequently was a never failing source of mirth 

 whenever alluded to at home, when first received, was the subject of 

 much comment, alike in parlour, nursery, and servants' hall, and it 

 ended in my father mounting a swift horse and riding post haste 

 to Marlborough College, where he demanded the latest bulletin 

 regarding his secundus son. But nobody could make out exactly 

 what he meant. It was true that Number 156 had been treated as 

 an out-door patient, for " headache and pain in his side," but as he 



