"Yes, sir; lunacy. Now, look here, doctor, don't you begin apologising for these boys and taking their part, because if you do, sir, we are no longer friends." "Well, Sir James, it has always been an understood thing between us that I was to be quite independent and have liberty to express my opinion in matters connected with you and your boys." "There, I knew it! You are going over to their side!" raged out Sir James. "And I know how it will be: I shall be so upset that I shall have a fearful fit of the gout after this, and be obliged to have in that doctor with his wretched mixtures for the next fortnight. Well, sir, I must listen to you, I suppose." "Yes, Sir James, I think you had better," said the doctor, smiling; and he glanced at Mark. "Well, go on, then," cried Sir James. "Oh, I say, father, don't," cried Mark sharply. "Don't what, sir?" pretty well roared his father. "I don't mind a nip or two, but you did give it to me then. It was like a vice." "Pooh, boy, pooh! You are not a baby, are you?" "No, father, but--" began Mark, wriggling his shoulder. "Hold your tongue, sir, and don't interrupt the doctor. Now, doctor, what were you going to say?" "I was going to say, Sir James, that I fully believe that a fit of the gout must be very painful--" "Oh, you think so, do you?" "Yes, Sir James, and I think also that you are not troubled with many. Of course we are not going to imitate Mr Pickwick, and a wheelbarrow is quite out of the question." "Now, look here, sir," cried Sir James angrily--but somehow there was a want of reality in his tones--"don't you begin to suggest impossibilities. I think I know what you are aiming at." "I should not be surprised, sir, if you do. Now, of course if we went on this expedition, or expeditions, we should be going through forests often nearly impassable; but I think I have read--" "Oh, yes, I know," said Sir James shortly, and the boys watched the doctor with eager eyes, and as they caught his he gave to each a keen encouraging look; "you have read everything--a deal too much, I think," he grumbled, almost inaudibly. "--that," continued the doctor, making believe that he had not heard the baronet's tetchy words, "great use is made of the blacks in Africa and India, who are quite accustomed to using a litter for the sportsmen in hunting expeditions, for the benefit of their employers." Sir James set his son's shoulder free by giving him a fierce thrust, and his own hand too, so as to bring down his doubled fist upon the library table. "Look here, sir," he roared, "do you for a moment think that I would consent to be carried stretched out on a couple of poles raised shoulder high by a pack of niggers? Because if you do--"