Feeling tired, despite the fact that he’d gone to bed earlier than usual last night, not to mention the last three nights, James forced himself to get up that morning. His appetite was again nonexistent, so he choked down a couple of bites of an apple on his way before he gave it up, tossing the remains to one of the horses in the corral at the livery.
After a moment’s rest, for once uncaring that this would make him late for work, James straightened away from the railing and resumed his walk to work. His pace was much slower than his usual brisk walk, and he paused several times, hanging on hitching posts, or leaning against buildings, pale-faced and feeling more than a little shaky, rubbing at his aching chest, unaware that he’d done so.
“Good morning.” He greeted his employers after he reached the surveyor’s office, his fair complexion unusually flushed from the walk, and his undiagnosed, untreated illness. With a grimace at his sore throat, he smothered yet another cough as he made his way to his desk in the back of the office, surrounded by the research materials that he used most often in his work. James sat down at his small, neatly ordered desk, resisting the urge to simply lay his head down on it, and started to do research. He tried to anyway, but he kept losing his concentration due to the shivers and the nearly constant need to smother the urge to cough.
He struggled through the work on his desk for about four and a half hours before he could no longer function even remotely normally and he started to cough violently, struggling to breathe normally. James shot to his feet, swayed on for a long moment, then crumpled to the floor, just missing taking a pile of books down with him when he passed out.
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"Alright James, what is this, you've not been yourself for a couple of days at least" Adda said walking to his desks, hand on her hips and a concerned look on her face? "You are not well, or not right, but I've not smelled alcohol on you and you are not unkempt as I would suspect of a tippler. Now, what gives?" She demanded to know.
Something was not right with James and she wanted to get to the bottom of it. "Have you seen Doctor Danforth? Of course not. So I suggest we close the office, for a bit, while we walk to the Doctor's office and get to the bottom of this." It would seem she would not take no for an answer.
