"That's good," cried the professor excitedly. "Fetch those sofa cushions, Frank, and put them so that he can rest his arm upon them. Good! Now a pipe. Here, fish out my stick from under the table. That's right," he continued, as Frank placed the stick upside down in the doctor's hand, with the ferrule near his lips and the hook resting on the floor, turned up like a bowl. "Well, I am!" cried the professor, drawing his legs more under him, and nodding at his old school-fellow seated opposite at the other end of the hearthrug. "Franky, boy, he looks the very perfection of a Turkish doctor now, while with the real things on and his head shaved, and the turban--Oh, I haven't a doubt of it, he'd humbug the Mahdi himself if he were alive. I haven't a bit of fear about him. Sit still, old man.--As for myself, I should be all right; when I get out there I feel more of a native than an Englishman. It's you who are the trouble, Franky, for I confess I am coming round." "I shall get myself up perfectly. You may depend upon that," said the lad confidently, "and all through the voyage out Morris will coach me up about bandaging and helping him in ambulance work, so that I may get to be a bit clever as his assistant." "Yes, yes, yes, that's all right," said the professor impatiently. "It's not that which bothers me. Look at Bob. I can see him in his part exactly. Nothing could be better; but I can't see you at all." "Why? Set your imagination to work." "I am, my dear boy; I am. It's working till my brain's beginning to throb; but I can't see you, as I say." "But why not?" "No shape; no form. You're too skinny. A young nigger ought to be plump, and shine like butter." "Well, I'll oil myself," said Frank, laughing as much at himself as at the doctor seated _a la Turque_ so solemnly upon the hearthrug. "But your hair, Frank, my boy. It's brown and streaky. It ought to curl up more tightly than Bob's beard." "I'll put it in paper every night, and dye it at the same time as I do my skin." "H'm! Well, perhaps we might work it that way. If we can't, we must shave your head too." "Barkis is willin'," said the young man readily. "As to the sitting-- look here: won't this do?" He seized the tongs from the fender, took a live coal from between the bars, dropped down sitting upon his heels halfway between the pair, but outside the hearthrug, and completed the Eastern picture in Wimpole Street by resting upon his left hand and making believe to be holding the live coal to the bowl of the Hakim's pipe. "Bravo! Splendid!" cried the professor. "A _tableau vivant_, only wanting in colour and clothes to be perfect in all its details, and then--"