In the middle of Buchanan Street, an agitated treble called after him,
"Mr. Halfred! hoh, Mr. Halfred!" He looked back and saw Dick Absalom, a
promising young cricketer, brandishing a document and imploring aid. "Oh,
Master Halfred, dooce please come here. I durstn't leave the shop."
There is a tie between cricketers far too strong for social distinctions
to divide, and, though Alfred muttered peevishly, "Whose cat is dead
now?" he obeyed the strange summons.
The distress was a singular one. Master Absalom, I must premise, was the
youngest of two lads in the employ of Mr. Jenner, a benevolent old
chemist, a disciple of Malthus. Jenner taught the virtues of drugs and
minerals to tender youths, at the expense of the public. Scarcely ten
minutes had elapsed since a pretty servant girl came into the shop, and
laid a paper on the counter, saying, "Please to make that up, young man."
Now at fifteen we are gratified by inaccuracies of this kind from ripe
female lips: so Master Absalom took the prescription with a complacent
grin; his eye glanced over it; it fell to shaking in his hand, chill
dismay penetrated his heart; and, to speak with oriental strictness, his
liver turned instantly to water.
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