When it had been with tall, cold, stately Dr.Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite.
On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage, energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably ill-bred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he gradually acquiesced in his identity.

Then, little by little, the irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy were heard again, his little eyes danced, and his waggish smiles glowed once more, ruddy as a setting sun, through the nectarian vapours of the punch-bowl.
The ghosts of Pell and Rogerson fled to their cold dismal shades, and little Tom Toole was his old self again for a month to come.
'Your most obedient, gentlemen--your most obedient,' said Toole, bowing and taking their hands graciously in the hall--'a darkish evening, gentlemen.' 'And how does your patient, doctor ?' enquired Major O'Neil.
The doctor closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly, with a gentle shrug.
'He's in a bad case, major.

There's little to be said, and that little, Sir, not told in a moment,' answered Toole, and took snuff.
'How's Sturk, Sir ?' repeated the silver spectacles, a little sternly.
'Well, Sir, he's not _dead_; but, by your leave, had we not better go into the parlour, eh?
--'tis a little chill, and, as I said, 'tis not all told in a moment--he's not dead, though, that's the sum of it--_you_ first, pray proceed, gentlemen.' Dangerfield grimly took him at his word; but the polite major got up a little ceremonious tussle with Toole in the hall.

However, it was no more than a matter of half-a-dozen bows and waves of the hand, and 'after you, Sir;' and Toole entered, and after a general salutation in the style of Doctor Pell, he established himself upon the hearth-stone, with his back to the fire, as a legitimate oracle.
Toole was learned, as he loved to be among the laity on such occasions, and was in no undue haste to bring his narrative to a close.

But the gist of the matter was this--Sturk was labouring under concussion of the brain, and two terrific fractures of the skull--so long, and lying so near together, that he and Doctor Pell instantly saw 'twould be impracticable to apply the trepan, in fact that 'twould be certain and instantaneous death.