And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw, the cushions intended to receive his head, and got the lethargic trunk and skull of the Artillery doctor well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid them on the table, and unlocked his box, which was a large one, and took out several instruments, silver-mounted, straight and crooked, with awful adaptations to unknown butcheries and tortures, and then out came another—­the veritable trepan—­resembling the homely bit-and-brace, but slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous sort of elegance.

’You may as well order in half-a-dozen clean towels, if you please, Ma’am.’

’Oh!  Doctor, you’re not going to have an operation to-night, gasped Mrs. Sturk, her face quite white and damp, and her clasped hands trembling.

‘Twenty to one, Ma’am,’ he replied with a slight hiccup, ’we’ll have nothing of the kind; but have them here, Ma’am, and some warm water for fear of accidents—­though maybe ’tis only for a dhrop of punch we’ll be wanting it,’ and his huge, thirsty mouth grinned facetiously; and just then Dr. Toole entered the room.  He was confoundedly surprised when he found Black Dillon there.  Though bent on meeting him with hauteur and proper reserve, on account of his damnable character, he was yet cowed by his superior knowledge, so that Tom Toole’s address was strangely chequered with pomposity and alarm.

Dillon’s credentials there was, indeed, no disputing, so they sent for Moore, the barber; and, while he was coming, they put the women out of the room, and sat in consultation.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

IN WHICH MR. MOORE THE BARBER ARRIVES, AND THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN LOCK THE DOOR.

The ladies were not much the wiser, though, I confess, they were not far removed from the door.  The great men inside talked indistinctly and technically, and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack a joke—­they could not distinctly hear what—­and hee-haw brutally over it.  And poor little Mrs. Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, and looked as white as a ghost, and was, indeed, so obviously at the point of swooning that her women would have removed her to the nursery, and placed her on the bed, but that such a procedure would have obliged them to leave the door of their sick master’s room, just then a point of too lively interest to be deserted.  So they consoled their mistress, and supported her with such strong moral cordials as compassionate persons in their rank and circumstances are prompt to administer.

‘Oh!  Ma’am, jewel, don’t be takin’ it to heart that way—­though, dear knows, ‘tis no way surprisin’ you would; for may I never sin if ever I seen such a murtherin’ steel gimblet as the red-faced docthor—­I mane the Dublin man—­has out on the table beside the poor masther—­’tid frighten the hangman to look at it—­an’ six towels, too!  Why, Ma’am dear, if ‘twas what they wor goin’ to slaughter a bullock they wouldn’t ax more nor that.’