again, and there Jenkins would have been fast! They found him lying at
the foot of the stairs, just inside the choir gates, with no more life
in him than there is in a dead man."

"I asked you whether he is seriously hurt, Mrs. Jenkins."

"Pretty well. He came to his senses as they were bringing him home, and
somebody ran for Hurst, the surgeon. He is better this morning."

"But not well enough to come to business?"

"Hurst told him if he worried himself with business, or anything else
to-day, he'd get brain fever as sure as a gun. He ordered him to stop
in bed and keep quiet, if he could."

"Of course he must do so," observed Mr. Galloway.

"There is no of course in it, when men are the actors," dissented Mrs.
Jenkins. "Hurst did well to say 'if he could,' when ordering him to
keep quiet. I'd rather have an animal ill in the house, than I'd have a
man--they are ten times more reasonable. There has Jenkins been,
tormenting himself ever since seven o'clock this morning about coming
here; he was wanted particularly, he said. 'Would you go if you were
dead?' I asked him; and he stood it out that if he were dead it would
be a different thing. 'Not different at all,' I said. A nice thing it
would be to have to nurse him through a brain fever!"

"I am grieved that it should have happened," said Mr. Galloway, kindly.
"Tell him from me, that we can manage very well without him. He must
not venture here again, until Mr. Hurst says he may come with safety."