"Not at all," said Mr. Green, with a bitter sneer; "if he had been in any danger, I should have taken the matter up myself. Come, doctor," he added, more civilly; "don't be in a passion, and don't play the fool. I tell you, if it will be any satisfaction to you to know, that I, John Green, simple as I stand here, have seen more wounds and broken bones than you, and a dozen other such younkers, will ever have the mending of; and, for the matter of that, I have seen more mended than ever you will see hurt, ay, and helped in the mending, too,--as any man must, who has traded among Indians. So, come; look to your duty; the young gentleman will pay you for your services; and, as he seems to be forlorn-like, with no better friend at hand, I shall stand by him, to see he gets the worth of his money." The amazement with which the insulted leech listened to these contumelious expressions, was prodigious, and would have been expressed otherwise than by a simple, common-place "whew!" had it not been for the dark scowl that clouded the trader's visage, at the first sign of explosion. It was a look of more than ordinary resentment or menace; and, indeed, expressed equal malignance with the grin of a wild-cat, preparing for the spring. The terror it struck to the bosom of the doctor, was communicated to his friends, who betrayed at first some inclination to enter into the controversy, but ended the heroic impulse in sundry grumbling murmurs. "A devilish strange fellow as ever I saw!" growled the doctor in the ear of one. "A case of _monomania_, sir; he is mad, sir: yes! I see mania in his eye; he has been hurt on the head, you can tell by the knocks there, the scars on his phys'nomy; and his eye shows the infirmity. So we must humour him, sirs, we must humour him.--'Tis the method; and method is the soul of business." Thus apologizing for the surrender of his wrath and dignity, the surgeon betook himself again to his patient. "Hum! hah!" he cried, laying his fingers on Herman's wrist,--"pulse irregular, intermittent.--The struggle between life and death--very low, sir, very low!--Aunt Rachel, make me half a dozen mustard-plasters, roast me a dozen bricks, and get me a coal of fire, to try if there's any feeling in him. One dare not bleed with such a pulse as this." Green listened with visible impatience to the physician; and then, with as little consideration as before, exclaimed, "What needs all these knick-knackeries? Clap this shoulder into place, and then think of them."