Waves of pain vibrated outward to his ears and eyes. He watched the shade against the blindless window flap to and fro. Each streak of light admitted, struck the sufferer like a blow. He got up, went to the washbasin and sopped a towel, which he bound about his head and lay down again--no relief. He could endure it no longer. He dropped his boots one after the other on the floor, till at length Marsden heard the signal of distress, came lumbering up the stairs, and thumped upon his door. Flint bade him come in and state in the fewest possible words whether there was any doctor within reach. "There was." "How long would it take to fetch him?" "About half an hour." "Let it be done." Again Flint sank into a sort of stupor, from which he was awakened by a knock, and the entrance of a nervous, little wiry gentleman whose clothes of rusty black had the effect of having been purchased in a fit of absence of mind. The sufferer roused himself as the physician came in. "The doctor?" "Yes." "My name is Flint, and I sent for you to give me a dose of morphine." "My name, sir, is Cricket, and I'm damned if I do any such thing." "Why did they send for you then?" "They sent for me to see what I thought you needed--not to take your orders for a drug. I am not an apothecary." "More's the pity!" returned Flint, flouncing across to the inner side of the bed, and turning his back unceremoniously upon his visitor. Dr. Cricket received this demonstration with unconcern. He took out his thermometer and shook it against his wrist. Then resting one knee on the bed he thrust the thermometer into his recalcitrant patient's mouth, saying: "Don't crunch on it, unless you want your mouth full of glass, and your belly full of mercury. Now for the pulse. Ah! too fast--I expected as much." He took out the thermometer and held it to the light. "Over one hundred--see here, young man, it's well you sent for me when you did." "I wish I hadn't." "So do I, from a professional point of view. Nothing so good for doctors' business as delay in sending for us. As it is, I fear I can't conscientiously make more than two calls, or keep you in bed after to-morrow." "But what are you going to do for this accursed pain in the head?" "Oh, that's of no consequence--only a symptom. It's the fever that worries me." "Oh, it is--is it? Well, it is the pain that worries me, and if you don't do something about it, I'll fire your old bottles out of the window." "Very good. Then I will send back to Mrs. White's for more bottles and a straight-jacket to boot--" "So you live at Mrs. White's, do you?" "No, sir, I do not _live_ anywhere in summer--I board." The doctor chuckled over his little joke as genially as if it had never seen the light before; but humor does not appeal to a man with a headache, and antique humor least of all. "That's where Miss Fred and that freckled-faced brother of hers stay--isn't it?" Flint continued. "Ah, do you know the Anstices?"