"Everybody is liable to make mistakes," pleaded the bearded one. "But when a man practising medicine makes the mistakes you do," returned Mr Deadwood, "he had better set up at once as secret agent--on a liberal salary--to a necropolis company." But the bearded man was only half-listening to his visitor. "I can’t understand it," he muttered; "he was frightfully injured." "But he’s frightfully tough," rejoined Deadwood: "footer, rowing, cricket--all good for the spine. He’ll get well! Ahem! Sorry to have to suggest it myself, but have you got any tea to give away to a thirsty apothecary?" "Certainly. Sit down and have a cup." "I will," said Mr Deadwood. "As I have previously remarked, you’re not a bad sort. After all, you can’t help being an ass. _You_ condemned Jim to death, and Trefusis has reprieved him. Two lumps and plenty of milk, and the toast is--JIM!" *CHAPTER XXXII.* *IN WHICH TWO PEOPLE SET OUT UPON A JOURNEY.* The Long ’Un lay staring at the wall-paper. How often had he counted that design! Above the window it was repeated seventeen times--over and over again he counted the pattern to make sure it was repeated seventeen times--eight each side and one odd one in the middle. And again underneath and along each wall ran the design in serried and monotonous rows. He knew every bend and turn of it by heart. It represented a herb or flower of some kind, the like of which never was seen by mortal eye in garden, forest, field, or dell. Almost unceasingly Jim had gazed on this stiff unnatural growth since he had regained consciousness. He had nothing else to do. He didn’t want to talk, and he wasn’t encouraged to. All he could do was lie there and stare at the wall-paper. And when he was not counting the wall-paper pattern he would close his eyes and picture Dora to himself. He would think of her in the neat coat and skirt she wore to the post-office and back; then simply in the blouse and skirt she dressed in "for the house"; then in the white frock she donned when bound for any entertainment in Jefferson’s company. On the whole, Jim most liked to dream of her in the blouse and skirt. He had seen her thus attired most frequently; such was her costume when he first set eyes on her in the A B C shop that memorable August afternoon. And so he lay with his head in white bandages and his back in plaster-of-Paris--not able to sit up or to turn even; so he lay and gazed upon the pictures of Dora that floated before his mind’s eye. They had not told him that no marriage had taken place. The matter had been delicately mentioned to the two great surgeons by Mr Maybury, but they had both set their faces against the idea of saying anything to Jim about it, Trefusis declaring that it would excite his patient too much.