I should have been mad by now.

Nothing else keeps off these fits;--I feel one coming now.

Curse you! give me the bottle!" "What fits ?" "How do I know?
Agony and torture--ever since I got wet on that mountain." Tom knew enough to guess his meaning, and felt Elsley's pulse and forehead.
"I tell you it turns every bone to red-hot iron!" almost screamed he.
"Neuralgia; rheumatic, I suppose," said Tom to himself.

"Well, this is not the thing to cure you: but you shall have it to keep you quiet." And he measured him out a small dose.
"More, I tell you, more!" said Elsley, lifting up his head, and looking at it.
"Not more while you are with me." "With you! Who the devil sent you here ?" "John Briggs, John Briggs, if I did not mean you good, should I be here now?
Now do, like a reasonable man, tell me what you intend to do." "What is that to you, or any man ?" said Elsley, writhing with neuralgia.
"No concern of mine, of course: but your poor wife--you must see her." "I can't, I won't!--that is, not yet! I tell you I cannot face the thought of her, much less the sight of her, and her family,--that Valencia! I'd rather the earth should open and swallow me! Don't talk to me, I say!" And hiding his face in his hands, he writhed with pain, while Thurnall stood still patiently watching him, as a pointer dog does a partridge.
He had found his game, and did not intend to lose it.
"I am better now; quite well!" said he, as the laudanum began to work.
"Yes! I'll go--that will be it--go to -- -- at once.

He'll give me an order for a magazine article; I'll earn ten pounds, and then off to Italy." "If you want ten pounds, my good fellow, you can have them without racking your brains over an article." Elsley looked up proudly.
"I do not borrow, sir!" "Well--I'll give you five for those pistols.