"Well, anyway, when I next meet him I'll thrash him within an inch of his life," cried Master Nathaniel violently; and Endymion Leer looked at him with a queer little smile. "And now you'd better take me to see your son and heir," he said, after a pause. "Do you ... do you think you'll be able to cure him?" Master Nathaniel asked hoarsely, as he led the way to the parlour. "I never answer that kind of question before I've seen the patient, and not always then," answered Endymion Leer. Ranulph was lying on a couch in the parlour, and Dame Marigold was sitting embroidering, her face pale and a little defiant. She was still feeling every inch a Vigil and full of resentment against the two Chanticleers, father and son, for having involved her in this horrible business. Poor Master Nathaniel stood by, faint with apprehension, while Endymion Leer examined Ranulph's tongue, felt his pulse and, at the same time, asked him minute questions as to his symptoms. Finally he turned to Master Nathaniel and said, "I want to be left alone with him. He will talk to me more easily without you and your dame. Doctors should always see their patients alone." But Ranulph gave a piercing shriek of terror. "No, no, no!" he cried. "Father! Father! Don't leave me with him." And then he fainted. Master Nathaniel began to lose his head, and to buzz and bang again like a cockchafer. But Endymion Leer remained perfectly calm. And the man who remains calm inevitably takes command of a situation. Master Nathaniel found himself gently but firmly pushed out of his own parlour, and the door locked in his face. Dame Marigold had followed him, and there was nothing for them to do but to await the doctor's good pleasure in the pipe-room. "By the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I'm going back!" cried Master Nathaniel wildly. "I don't trust that fellow, I'm not going to leave Ranulph alone with him, I'm going back." "Oh, nonsense, Nat!" cried Dame Marigold wearily. "Do please be calm. One really must allow a doctor to have his way." For about a quarter of an hour Master Nathaniel paced the room with ill-concealed impatience. The parlour was opposite the pipe-room, with only a narrow passage between them, and as Master Nathaniel had opened the door of the pipe-room, he soon was able to hear a murmur of voices proceeding from the parlour. This was comforting, for it showed that Ranulph must have come to. Then, suddenly, his whole body seemed to stiffen, the pupils of his eyes dilated, he went ashy white, and in a low terrified voice he cried, "Marigold, do you hear?" In the parlour somebody was singing. It was a pretty, plaintive air, and if one listened carefully one could distinguish the words. "And can the physician make sick men well, And can the magician a fortune divine Without lily, germander, and sops in wine? With sweet-brier, And bon-fire, And strawberry-wire, And columbine."