"No, I don't think he's ill, sir," he remarked, with treble conviction.
"Then why does he lie like that?"
"I expect it's because he's dead, sir," the child replied, with grave
serenity.
This unbiased testimony in favour of his fears came to Julian's mind like
a storm.
"How do you know?" he exclaimed, with a harsh voice.
"Lor', sir," the boy said, not without a certain pride, "I knows a corpse
when I sees it. My father died come a fortnight ago. See that?"
And he indicated, with stumpy finger, the black band upon his left arm.
"Well, father looked just like the gentleman."
Julian was petrified by this urchin's intimacy with death. It struck
him as utterly vicious and terrible. A horror of the rosy-faced little
creature, with good-conduct medals gleaming on its breast, came over him.
"Hush!" he said.
"All right, sir; but you take my word for it, the gentleman's dead."
Julian finished the note, thrust it into an envelope, and addressed it to
the doctor.
"Run and get a cab and take that at once to Harley Street," he said.
The boy smiled.
"I like cab-riding," he said.
"And," Julian caught his arm, "that gentleman is not dead. He's alive,
I tell you; only in a faint, and alive.
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