The head of the large four-poster rested against the opposite wall. Its
foot was presented toward the fireplace; but the curtains at the side,
which alone I could see from my position, were closed.
The little doctor knew me, and thinking me, I suppose, a person of
consequence, removed his hands from behind him, suffering the skirts of his
coat to fall forward, and with great celerity and gravity made me a low but
important bow; then choosing more particularly to make my acquaintance
he further advanced, and with another reverence he introduced himself
as Doctor Jolks, in a murmured diapason. He bowed me back again into my
uncle's study, and the light of old Wyat's dreadful candle.
Doctor Jolks was suave and pompous. I longed for a fussy practitioner who
would have got over the ground in half the time.
Coma, madam; coma. Miss Ruthyn, your uncle, I may tell you, has been in a
very critical state; highly so. Coma of the most obstinate type. He would
have sunk--he must have gone, in fact, had I not resorted to a very extreme
remedy, and bled him freely, which happily told precisely as we could have
wished.
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