“His name’s been accepted,” ended the Big Doctor, after the lengthiest of these, “and it would be no harm for you to be slipping in a word, now and again, with the people through the country, according as you’d get the chance, Danny.”

“I will, I will,” replied the little doctor, as he opened the door of Father Sweeny’s room.

“You’re doing very well, Father,” said Dr. Mangan, his inspection of the patient ended.  “I consider you couldn’t be progressing more satisfactorily.”  He seated himself by Father Tim Sweeny’s bedside, while the Nursing Sister-in-Charge rolled up bandages, and conferred in lowered tones with Dr. Aherne, on the subject of what he called the patient’s “dite.”

“You’ll be going as strong as ever you did in a few weeks’ time,” continued Dr. Mangan, encouragingly.

Father Sweeny returned the Doctor’s look morosely.

“I’m sick and tired of being here as it is,” he said, gloomily, “and you talk to me of weeks!”

“Ah, they’ll pass, never fear they’ll pass!” said the Big Doctor, cheerfully.  “I never saw the weeks yet that didn’t pass if you waited long enough!  And I wouldn’t say but that you mightn’t go home before you’re out of our hands entirely.”

Father Sweeny received these consolations with an unpropitiated grunt.  His large face, with its broad cheeks and heavy double-chins, that was usually of a sanguine and all pervasive beefy-red, now hung in pallid purple folds, on which dark bristles, that were as stiff as those on the barrel of a musical box, told that the luxury of shaving had hitherto been withheld.  There are some professions that tend more than others to grade the men that follow them into distinct types.  The Sea is one of these, the Church, and pre-eminently the Church of Rome, is another.  The ecclesiastical types vary no less than the nautical ones, and neither need here be enumerated.  It is sufficient to say that Father Sweeny, when in his usual robust health, in voice, in appearance, and in manner, provoked, uncontrollably, a comparison with a heavy and truculent black bull.

“’Tis highly inconvenient to me to be boxed up in bed this way, at this time,” said Father Sweeny, with a small hot eye upon his attendant nun that would have said instantly to any one less entirely kind, religious, and painstaking, that he had no immediate need of her services; “Sister Maria Joseph, I wonder would you be so kind as to bring me the paper?  I didn’t see it to-day at all.”

Sister Maria Joseph turned her amiable, unruffled face, with that pure complexion that would seem to be one of the compensations for the renunciation of the world, towards her patient, and said, obsequiously: 

“I beg your pordon, Fawther?”

The little eyes had a hotter sparkle as Father Sweeny repeated his request.