"So, you're are saying that he is in the Tavern. Again. All day?" Arthur asks Gaius. Gaius stutters, while putting a bottle of verbena away. "Well… That's where he could be my Lord."
"But that isn't where he is?" Arthur put his hands on his hips.
"That's not where he… isn't." Gaius raised his right eyebrow over his mischievous eye, and went on to say, "My Lord, I will tell him you are looking for him, when he returns, if that will suffice?"
"Do so, Gaius. I need my armor polished and my sword sharpened for the tournament tomorrow," he turned on his heel and stomped out of the physician's quarters. Arthur stopped in the doorway just as Gaius was about to let out a woosh of breath in relief, making him nearly choke on it. "Yes my lord?" Gaius said.
"He's going to be mucking out my stables for the next month if he WERE in the tavern all day. You can tell him that." He shut the door behind him before Gaius could reply.
Merlin fell out of the closet as an old man, muttering, "The Tavern? Gaius? Really?" He snatched the bottle of elixir that would turn him back to his youthful form out of Gaius' hand and gulped it down, glaring at him.
Gaius shrugged and chuckled under his breath.