XXXIAN INTERLUDEOne result of my acquaintanceship with Doctor Brink is not entirely pleasant. I have developed a sort of interest in poor people.I am always lighting, in odd corners, upon what I call "Brink cases." Such experiences pursue me even into respectable places. I bumped into one, lately, within a stone's throw of the Houses of Parliament, to which place I was bound at midnight.The clouds were showing heavy and black upon a moonlit sky as I turned on to the Thames Embankment by Hungerford Bridge, so that I shivered extensively. These September nights, at best, do not add much to the pleasures of a promenade. But this night was especially unconducive to philosophic loitering. There was wind, and that constant, dull foreshadowing of rain which is worse than a deluge. There were those hurrying, hump-backed clouds, and their indefinite reflection upon the greasy surface of the Thames. And the clock struck twelve, and a policeman by my elbow spat and swore. And some vessel far up stream gave harrowing expression to its feelings by means of that dismal instrument which is humorously called a syren. Like the mysterious stranger in the story books, I drew my travelling cloak around me, and shuddered at the windy vastness of it all.And then I fell to smiling. For away yonder, in the mirk, figures were moving and bobbing, and, by all the saints that care for vagrants, it seemed to me that their movements suggested mirth."These must be weird people," thought I to myself, as I went towards them, "who can find anything to laugh at in this place?" As I drew close up to them their figures stood out more clearly against the great wall of the Embankment; and I saw that the prime cause of this apparent joyfulness was a girl—a girl who was very young, and rather graceful.She wore an old straw hat and a heavy shawl, after the manner of her kind, and one end of the shawl was much longer than the other, and was caught up into a bundle beneath her arm. So that I guessed her to be carrying a baby.One of her companions was a middle-aged man of round and rather stupid build. As I came up he was moving slowly from one foot to the other, and wagging his head. He wore a ragged overcoat, which was buttoned to his ears, and he was waving an arm about in a manner which appeared to be admonitory.The group was completed by a second man, younger than the other, and taller. He was holding a hand to his face, which the girl had evidently buffeted. The young fellow was saying something which I could not catch in a plaintive voice, and the girl—jocund creature—was leaning against the wall, swaying and shaking with silent laughter.That mournful syren still jarred upon one's ears, and set a cog-wheel running up one's backbone; the dark clouds jostled each other as before, and were reflected in the oily sludge beneath them; the wind blew from every quarter at once, and the fallen leaves that lay upon the footway rustled in it like a shroud. And this girl leaned up against a pillar and shook herself with laughter.Then I went closer still and perceived my folly. The girl was not laughing at all. That which I had supposed to be mirth was really its opposite. The girl wascrying—crying silently and effectively, and without ostentation. When feminine lamentations are conducted with this sort of restraint there is usually a reason for them.The stupid man spoke to the girl. "Why don't you take 'eed to what 'Erb says?" he demanded. "Why dontchew go 'ome? There's sense in what 'Erb says."And then the young man spoke, saying, "That's right, ole Emma. Come along 'ome, ole Emma."The girl crept closer to the wall, flattened herself against it, as if she sought protection there. "I—I wown't gow 'owm," she said, between the sobs. "I wown't move from 'ere, I wown't, till it's nine o'clock. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine o'clock.' 'Come back at nine o'clock,' he said. You 'eard what 'e said, 'Erb. I wown't move from 'ere, I wown't."'Erb went closer to her. They were all so occupied with this discussion that I am sure my presence was not observed. It was as though I wore some mantle of invisibility. I could have danced a hornpipe, I believe, without attracting notice.... "What's the good of talkin' like that?" said 'Erb to the girl. "Come along 'ome, Emma.""I wown't move astepfrom 'ere, I wown't," responded Emma. "You 'ear what I say? I wown't move, I tell you. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine o'clock,' an' at nine o'clock I'm goin' back—to see my baby."... If youwasa man you'd take me overnow"—she pointed, vaguely, in the direction of Charing Cross Hospital—"you'd take me back and fight 'em, you would, till they let us in. What they want to turn us out till mornin' for?"I wanter see my baby, I do. My baby'll die afore it's morning."'Come back at nine,' the gentleman said; and all its pore arm turned stiff, an' white, an' swollen. What you wanter move that lamp for, you fool? Why did you open the door? Did you 'ear 'im 'oller? Oh, Christ! did you 'ear 'im 'oller? We'll lose 'im, 'Erb: my Gawd! we'll lose 'im. Did you 'ear what the gentleman said? 'Come back at nine to-morrow mornin',' 'e said. What'd 'e want to turn us out for, the swine? What you want to go 'owm for? My baby'sthere, you ape: over there, with the nurse an' the gentleman. Think I'd go 'owm wiv the likes o'youan' leave 'im? What you wanter move that lamp for? Did you see it runnin' all over 'im, an' 'im 'ollerin', an' cuttin' 'is feet in the glass of the chimbly?"Did you—did you? Go away, I tell you. I wown't move, I tell you. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine.' What you wanter worry me for? What you wanter stop for? I want my baby—I—I—you makeshift, you, I'ateyou."And the young man twisted his cap between his fingers, and drew a little closer to her, and said, "Come along 'ome.""Yus, go along 'ome," supplemented the stupid man. "You can't stop out 'ere all night. And what's the good o' worryin'? People's got to pay for bein' married an' that inthisworld. It might be worse, you know, young Emma——""Ah!" interpolated the younger man. "It might be worse, you know, ole Emma!""What is it, after all," pursued his stout companion, "what is it, after all, to bury a baby? I remember well when we was nailin' up our Number Three——"The stout man's reminiscences ended suddenly. It was the fist of the younger man which ended them. "Chew that, ye one-eyed wind-bag," observed its owner.Then, drawing Emma gently from the wall, he placed his arm about her, and whispered something in a voice which aspired clumsily to be hopeful. Now that the girl was facing me, I could see that she did not carry a child, as I had at first supposed. It was merely an end of shawl which she carried—a rude sort of nest or pocket, pressed close to her bosom, as if in waiting for some tender burden."Come along 'ome, ole girl," the young man urged. "What's the use o' dawdlin'?""Go away!" replied the woman. "Leave a girl in peace, can't you? I'm waitin' for my baby. I'm waitin' for nine o'clock, like the gentleman said.... I wonder if 'e's sleepin'? I wonder if they've 'urt 'im? ... I wonder if he's dead?""Ain't you comin' 'ome?" pleaded the man."Ain't you goin' away?" the woman answered. "What's the good o' pesterin'? Can't you 'ear what I tell you? Do you wanter send me mad—fussin' an' pesterin'?"There's a clock; one, now, an' the gentleman said nine.""That was 'arpas' twelve struck then," observed the stout man."And the gentleman said nine," sighed the girl."Think e'll 'ave 'is mind back be the mornin', 'Erb? 'E never knowed nothin' when we left; never knowed nothin' when I carried 'im out from 'ome. Did you see 'ow fast 'is teeth was? Did—— The gentleman said, 'Don't worry.' Must be a fool. What did you wanter move the lamp for?""Table was so full, an' the cloth was draggin'. Anyone might 'a' stepped on it. I never meant no 'arm, ole Emma.""Bin all right if the door was shut. Might be nursin' 'im now, 'Erb, in yere overcoat, 'stead of 'im—— Did you see ow drored out 'is fingers was when the gentleman come to look? 'Ow long before nine? Think they'd let us in before? It's all through that door bein' open. That curtain it—— Gawd's Truth, 'Erb, it was thenoocurtain what I put up yesterday. It wasmycurtain.Idone it, I killed my baby.""'Eain't killed," asserted the fat man. "Be as right as I am in a twel'month.""I put up that curtain to show off; that's all I put it up for. And it blew on to the lamp, an' it—it—Gawd blind me, I've killed my baby.""That's a lie!" shouted the man. "Didn't I leave the door open? Didn't I shove the dam thing right under the curtain? Begod, I did. Don't tell lies to yeself, ole Emma. It was me as done it. It was me as burnt that little beggar's arm. Wish to Gawd I'd burnt me eyes out first.""Go' bless my soul," observed the stupid man, "whatisthe use of quarrellin' over trifles? Whatever does it matter whether the lamp moved the curtain or the curtain moved the lamp? Thing's done, ain't it? Boy's arm's all charred up. Why argue? Take an' get a good night's sleep. Ain't we all 'ad trouble? When my first went down——""I 'it 'im to-day," said the woman. "For eatin' coal, it was."The man drew her hand into his, which was not more rough and shapeless. "'E thought the world o' you, ole Emma," he observed."'Ow long to nine o'clock, 'Erb? 'Ow long afore they'll let us see 'im? The gentleman said, 'Don't worry.' ... We was mad to leave 'is cradle there.""It's all so full in the room," replied 'Erb. "I was gointer move next quarter. Allus next quarter, Gawd strike me! If we'd took that room we was lookin' at Easter time, there was gas there an'—an'——""Iwantedto 'ave it," whined the woman."When," pursued her husband, "when I was puttin' them rockers on the sugar-box, Ididsay as we'd 'ave a 'ooded top, to finish it. But I changed me mind. Devil take me! I changed me mind.""It'd 'a' saved 'im, that would," observed the woman. "We'd 'a' found 'im sittin' up an' laughin' at the fireworks.... Remember that day when the water come in?""R!" answered the man. "Rare tickled 'e was. Remembers it to this day. I'll lay any money 'e was tryin' to tell me about it when we was in the park o' Sunday. 'E——""Oh, Christ! my baby," cried the woman; and she lay sobbing in his arms.He led her to a seat, and she cried silently upon his shoulder for a long, long while. When she next spoke it was to wonder about the time. "Is itverylong to nine o'clock?" she inquired. And the man said, "Not so very. You lie still, ole Emma: you're all right; you lie still."Then Emma remembered that by moving the tin trunk which stood by the wash-stand to an empty niche beneath the table, a place of security might have been provided for that sugar-box. And they discussed all the other might-have-beens: and his beauty, and cheerfulness, and the surprising precocity of his speech. She trembled, and sobbed and sobbed, and her husband swore. They talked about all the other might-have-beens again; and the stupid man faced them, scratching his head, and saying:"Whatisthe use of all this argument?"After which the constabulary arrived, and flashed lamps upon them; and they rose heavily, and moved away.But I found them, presently, upon another seat. Emma's blue-white face was upon her husband's shoulder, and her lips were tightly clenched as she spoke to him. "'Ow long we got to wait till nine o'clock?" she asked."Not so long," replied the man.... "You lie still, ole Emma."She sighed, very slowly. And I noticed that a hummock of shawl was caught up close beneath her arm.XXXIILOW FINANCEHe was a self-complacent, ox-voiced man, and being clothed on with his Sunday blacks, he looked objectionable. He surged into Dr. Brink's consulting-room all frothy and foamy with fellowship. "Evenin', Doc.," he gurgled. '"Ow's yeself?""Let me see your tongue?" said the doctor, who was tired and absent-minded. This was the ninety-seventh tongue which he had clamoured for that day: a fact which perhaps accounted for the absence from his manner of that sympathetic and anecdotal touch which distinguishes those learned men who follow the reputable or credit branch of his profession."It ain't about meself I've come, ole man," explained the visitor. "Leastways," he added, with an air as of scrupulous exactitude, "it ain't about me present self. I come to thank you for all your goodness to me during my accident."The doctor responded with a wondering stare."I come to thank you for all your goodness to me, Doc.," repeated the man. "And," he added, as one giving utterance to a careless afterthought, "to see about my little bill.""When did I attend you?" demanded the doctor."When did you attend me?" repeated the patient reproachfully. "Why, you attended me twice. I am that serious driving accident what you was called in to look at four weeks ago. And I bin round to see you once since then.""Serious driving accident," mused the doctor. Then—with an acid smile—"I think I remember now. The accident suddenly showed itself in your shoulder, didn't it, five days after the occurrence? And I couldn't find the place, could I? Not even a bruise.""It was very painful, Doctor," explained the invalid; "one of them inward bruises. They do say as that's the worst sort o' damage as kin 'appen to a man, getting a inward bruise, same's what I did. I bin layed up fower weeks 'long o' that accident.""And it took five days to mature. Ever heard of a disease called 'afterthought'?""Can't say rightly as I 'ave," admitted the sufferer."It is a curious sort of complaint," the doctor explained; "attacks a man very often in cases like this. Quite small things aggravate it, too; talkative friends, for example.""Will you make the bill out, Doctor?" requested the victim of this strange ailment."No need for a bill, is there?" said the doctor. "I can tell you what you owe me out of hand. One visit to your house, one consultation here: total, eighteenpence.""I'd prefer a proper invoice, Doctor," admitted the maimed one. "And look 'ere, ole man, make it out fur a sovereign, will ye? I ... I want to show it to my firm.""With pleasure," said the doctor. "Have you brought the sovereign with you?""Eh?" snapped the man."I asked if you had brought the sovereign," repeated the doctor. "If your firm is prepared to pay me a sovereign for my services to you, I shall, of course, be delighted to make out a bill for that amount.""But you on'y seed me twice," protested the visitor."That is what I wish to point out. My proper fees amount to eighteen pence. But if you want to pay me a p——""Idon'twanter to pay you a pound," bellowed the petitioner angrily. "Nothing so ridiculous.""In that case," responded the doctor, "let us say no more about the bill.""Do you call yeself a genelman?" demanded this martyred soul, with a choke in his voice. "Do you call yeself a genelman to stop a pore drayman from earnin' his honest compensation? 'Ow'm I goin' on for compensation?""Compensation for what?" inquired the doctor."Fur me accident," replied the man. "I bin laid up fower weeks.""One day of which," the doctor pointed out, "you spent in bed. Did they stop your wages?""Well, no," admitted the martyr. "They paid me me wages all right. But I ain't drored nothink fur me accident.""You drew a very comfortable holiday, at any rate," suggested the doctor. "A four weeks' rest cure on full wages. And that shoulder, you know, it was not what one could call a permanent injury: it hardly amounted to disablement. Do you think so?""Words," stated the sufferer, "cannot describe the agonies what I bin through.""You surprise me," murmured Dr. Brink. "Anyhow, you've been strong enough to do a lot of standing about outside the 'African Chief.'""What if I 'ave?" submitted the injured man. "Ain't I still entitled to compensation fur my accident?""It seems to me you've had it," argued the doctor."That I ain't," asserted the indignant claimant; "not a blighted 'a'penny.""Four weeks' rest, full pay," recited the doctor, with an air of monotony."Wiv me shoulder-blade all to Bucklesbury," added the claimant. "And not a brazen farthing fur me accident. I 'ad the corpuscular accident all right, I suppose? Ye don't deny it, do ye?""By no means," exclaimed the doctor. "Didn't I myself attend you for a unique complaint in the shoulder-blade?""Very well, then," pursued the invalid, somewhat mollified by this admission. "In that case I demand my rights. I demand the rights of a honest workin' man. I ask for compensation for my accident, same's what I'm entitled to accordin' to lor. Will you write out that invoice fur me?""Certainly: for the exact amount which you may care to pay me.""Do you call yeself a man?" demanded the visitor, with heightened colour. "What the scarlet letter do ye reckon I engaged ye for? Think I wanted ye for the sake of yere filthy physic? Ain't ye got no 'eart? Make out the invoice like a fair-minded man. Never tell me as you'd 'ave the 'eart to rob a pore man of 'is money.... They've refused to give me compensation fur my accident, and now 'ere's you—a genelman born, as oughta be above sich actions—you're gointer rob a pore man of 'is doctor's bill.... Besides, Itole'em that I owed a sovereign to the doctor, and they tells me to produce the invoice.... What am I to tell my firm?""Tell them what you like," replied the doctor. "I certainly shall give you no receipt for money which I haven't had.""Then 'ow do I go on?" queried the visitor.The doctor shrugged his shoulders.'"Ow'm I goin' on fur compensation—fur my accident?"The doctor repeated his shrug. "It seems to me," he said, "that your firm has treated you well. You don't know much, you know.""I may be a fool," admitted the afflicted one, "but I know my rights. I oughter be paid some compensation fur me accident.... You won't do nothing to 'elp me, then?""I can't," replied the doctor. "What you want is a new head.""Do I?" retorted the caller, flourishing his wounded arm. "That's the very thing asyou'llbe needin', ole sport, if ever I meets you outside. Call yeself a man?Icall you a swindlin' 'pothecary. I tell you one thing, Mister Whatsitname. Whenever I 'as another haccident, I takes it to the bloomin' 'orspital. I do knowthatmuch. See?"XXXIIITHE MOTHERS' MEETINGThe morning callers at Dr. Brink's dispensary are all of them women or little children. You may suppose that the waiting-room wears then a strange and wistful air, for the men being absent, with their hoarse, funereal pleasantries, and the shuffling young boys being absent too, and the girls likewise, having carried their titters and squeaks to the factory, there is not much to amuse folk in the waiting-room.You cannot expect a married woman to be very cheerful at the best of times, and when there is the place to tidy and the rent man expected, and the children will soon be coming home for their slabs and what not, and you have slipped out just for half a tick to get that dizzy feeling seen to, it is more than usually dull to be sat in a row with twenty other females, similarly cursed—some of them having babies at their breasts or little squalling things what hold fast to their skirts, and the place that stuffy and all, and a stink of iodine coming out of the doctor's room. Taking one consideration with another, it is not to be wondered at that the morning patients do not wear that air of curiosity and pleasure which a visit to the doctor should properly occasion.The morning patients have an absent-minded look—a dull, foreboding look, as of people who are too busy really to enjoy themselves. Some of them, also, are accompanied by their button-holes or other objects of light and profitable home employment, at which they work with assiduity whilst waiting for the doctor's call. Others, upon the other hand, bring peppermint drops. One lady has brought some literature—the outward wrapper of an ancient issue of a paper calledThe Pilot. So there they loll, all silent, many of them yawning—out of rudeness, or boredom, or fatigue, or something, one supposes.If you sit upon the gas-stove, you can watch them all as they come into the consulting-room. You can watch, for instance, the experienced matron, who enters with the baby thatwon'tget well, and dumps it down, in a business-like manner, upon the doctor's table."There you are," she says in the manner of one who has successfully completed a conjuring trick, "look at that tongue. Dideveryou see sich a thrush?""M'yes!" admits the doctor. "It's pretty bad. I'll give you a powder and some syrup.""Powder? Syrup?" echoes the matron. "H'm! Pity you can't give 'im a corfin. That's the on'y treatment what'll give any peace tothispore little swine. What mercy,Isay, is there in letting a thing like this live on? Look at it."When, to your great relief, the experienced matron goes away, you will be very lucky if you do not wish her back again, for it is ten to one that she will be followed by an apprentice to the trade, a poor wild thing whose senseless, shiftless, screaming mother-agony will hurt you ever so much more than the grim philosophy of the veteran."It seems to grip 'im, Doctor," the apprentice will say, "and throw 'im down, pore lamb, an' wrestle with 'im, Doctor, same's there was a fish-bone in 'is little throat, and 'im so weak, 'e don't have strength enough to 'oller, and 'im so blue and mottled, Doctor, and strangled-looking in the face, and the powder, that ain't doin' 'im no good. The Irishwoman down below, she dreamt she seed 'im in a shroud, and, Doctor, I see meself as 'e gets thinner, and I believe me milk 'as got some poison in it, along of some oysters what I eat one Sunday, and so I see 'im gettin' thinner, Doctor, and there's the strangled look a-comin'now! Won't you give 'im somethink, Doctor? What did you say I was to take 'im to the breast for? I tell you my milk 'as got the microbes in it. Oh, Christ! what can a womando? And Mine he comes 'ome late and stands and swears at me wiv no more feelin' than a 'og. Me gran'father Murphy's eyes 'e's got. There, then, sonny; there, then. What'll you do for 'im, Doctor? I seed a black cat on our winder-sill last night. My Gawd!—see 'ow it grips 'im!"By the time you feel disposed to come back to the gas-stove again it will be seen that the apprentice mother has given place to a grandmamma, who has looked in, as a friend, to mention that much gossip is arising in consequence of the extreme youth of Dr. Brink's apothecary.Far be it from her—Elizabeth Tebbings—to be one as would carry idle tales or utter idle plaint, but the fact remained and could be very solemnly attested by many honest witnesses from Mulberry Buildings that the medicine which she, Elizabeth Tebbings, had last Tuesday week received from the apothecary possessed a strange, unusual, and forbidding flavour—a nasty-nice sort of flavour which gave you shivers down your back."Far be it from me," protested Mrs. Tebbings, "to cast no slur, especially when the parints of the party has been friends and neighbours along with anybody—good neighbours, too—'is father especially being the 'andsomest man in the Customs service—but the truth is the truth even though a young man's parintsisbeknown to you, and to tell you the truth ofthisaffair, Doctor, young Wilfered Crage 'eisyoung—a mere boy, Doctor, if you understand my meanin'. And, unwilling as I am, 'avin' come to a motherly time of life, for to kerry tales, still I must say—speaking friendly, mind you, Doctor—that the medicinedidtaste ugly. Me brother Joseph tells me there was stricknyne in it."The doctor, having closely examined the water-tap in Wilfered's official laboratory, is heard to assure Mrs. Tebbings that her fears of strychnine poisoning are groundless, and that lady goes out with her confidence partially restored. "At the same time," she insists from the threshold, "the boyisyoung. And you got to remember that some of your patients'avedied sudden, Doctor. Look at that girl wiv 'earts disease what lived in our basement!"The next woman to enter has come to "engage." "I expect about the first week in September," she says. "An' if you please I'd like to pay a couple o' shillin' orf me ticket now. An', if you please, Doctor, will you give me the ticket with the two shillin' wrote orf? On'y will you give me another ticket, too, without nothink wrote orf? I want one so's I kin show it to me 'usband, see, Doctor? 'Cause if 'e see as I bin able to pay orf any, 'e'll say as I kin pay the lot orf, and I want to git a little 'elp from 'im, Doctor, so's to 'elp me over it all."This mild and unreproachful statement will probably provide you with a subject of thought. But your attention is diverted from that theme by the sudden appearance of one more mother—a hearty, stalwart, red-faced mother, with an ample bosom.This mother produces from behind the door a hearty, stalwart, red-faced boy. "'Is teef is rotten, Doctor," she explains. "I brought 'im round to 'ave 'em out. There's three wants coming out. They're all the same side. See 'em?""I see them," replies the doctor. "But three teeth at—er—one sitting! Isn't thatrathera tall order? Don't you think, perhaps, now, that we'd better take out only two to-day and leave the other one for treatment later on?"The mother grins extensively, shaking her jolly head."Never mind, Doctor," she says, "let's 'ave 'em all out. It's on'y eighteenpence."XXXIVTHE WOES OF WILFEREDWilfered, the 'Pothecary, hath a sorrow, or rather two sorrows, if not more than that.Some of these sorrows have reference to his master's interests; and it was in the capacity of Doctor Brink's familiar friend that I was privileged to learn some details of Wilfered's private and professional afflictions.We were in the dispensary, Wilfered having just explained that there were limits to the things which even he could stand; that the affections of a man and a 'Pothecary could be toyed with once too often, when a little maid came in. She was quite a little maid—some four to five spans high—the top of her dishevelled head being scarcely on a level with the ledge of Wilfered's peep-hole—that mysterious recess through which he views and governs the multitude within the doctor's waiting-room. The little maiden, having rapped authoritatively upon the wainscoting, held up an arm with a penny at the end of it, and a face enamelled over with soot and treacle. Said this client, speaking quickly—"Penny powder for a baby six months owld."Wilfered's expression of general discontent changed to one of immediate and particular disgust. "What do you say?" he demanded of the client."Please," murmured that lady, with the air of one triumphantly conscious of that which was expected of her.Wilfered solemnly shook his head. "Never mind about yere manners," said Wilfered. "What d'ye want?""Penny powder for a baby six months owld," repeated the child.Wilfered turned from the client to me, a look as of despair upon his face."This is the sorter thing you gotter contend against," he complained.Then addressing himself once more to the child, he uttered a sort of formula which he keeps for these emergencies—"We don't sell powders yere. If you wanter powder, go to the chimmis."The infant looked at him hopelessly. "Mover told me to come yere," she said."Under the circumstances," responded Wilfered, uttering another formula, "we will let you 'ave the powder. We won't sell it. We'llgiveit you. Nex' time, go to the chimmis.""That's the sorter thing you gotter contend against," said Wilfered again, as the client departed.He was about to repeat this observation for the third time, when his thoughts were distracted by the entry of another juvenile client—an older and taller girl than the last, though hardly a cleaner one."Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld," demanded the new-comer. She was the possessor of a wide, immovable smile.Wilfered bestowed another of his speaking glances upon your servant. And to the client he repeated his formula: "We don't sell powders yere, my gal. If you wanter powder, go to the chimmis."The lady listened to this statement with an attentive air. Then she spoke again, saying, "Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld.""We don't sell powders, I tell you," responded Wilfered."No," said the girl, "but you give 'em."Wilfered extended his head a further inch through the peep-hole. His nose and that of the client almost touched each other."This is a noo game, ain't it?" demanded Wilfered."What next? 'Cause we 'appen to give you a powder once, out of our generosity, seem to think you on'y got to come in yere to get one on the nod atenny minnit. Go to the chimmis.""Ma towld me to come yere," protested the client."Then," said Wilfered, "you go 'ome an' tell yere Ma as I refuse to serve ye. Seem to take us for a 'firmary. We don't sell powders, nor we don't give 'em—except first time to a reg'lar customer what does not know our rules. And if we was to sell powders, it wouldn't be for a penny, me gel."These powders," continued the loyal but shameless 'Pothecary, "are made up outer the very best drugs. They costusfrippence. You go 'ome an' tell yere motherthat."The lady went home, to be followed, in the course of nature—this being, as it were, "the children's hour"—by another lady, younger and smaller than any of her predecessors, demanding "A penny powder for——""'Oose baby?" demanded Wilfered."Baby four months old," replied the messenger."'Oosebaby?" repeated Wilfered."My baby," said the child."You bin 'ere afore about your baby?" inquired the 'Pothecary."No," said the messenger."Oh," mused Wilfered. "What name?""'Ilder," said the messenger."Mother's name, I mean," explained Wilfered."Mrs. Bates, Mulberry Street," said Mrs. Bates's emissary.And Wilfered repeated his formula: "Tell yere mother as we'llgive'er the powder this once, but nex' time you must send to the chimmis. We don't sell powders yere."Mrs. Bates's daughter, having received her powder, and being as yet without a proper understanding, deposited the penny with which she had been entrusted upon the ledge of Wilfered's peep-hole, and bolted from the waiting-room.Wilfered gazed upon this coin with an air of indecision. Finally, he picked it up (between a finger and thumb) and flung it into the till. His actions said plainer than words that he possessed a professional sentiment which was outraged at the thought of accepting this tainted money.And then—for events move quickly in Bovingdon Street—who should come bouncing in again but the big girl whom he had previously dismissed—she of the immovable smile."Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld," said the big girl.Wilfered was at first unable to speak; but when he did so, it was with point and emphasis."I suppose," he said, with scorn, at the end of his address, "as you kin understand plain English? Wedown't sell powders. And if we did, we couldn't sell 'em for a penny. These powders costusfrippence. Did ye tell yere mother that?""Yus," responded the girl, "but mother says she can't 'elpyourtroubles."Wilfered held on to the pill-tub and looked wildly about him. Then, with a deep-drawn sigh, he held out a powder and took the penny."What is the use o' arguin?" he demanded of your servant. "Look what you got to contend against."XXXVSTILL MORE OF PRUDENCEBaffin came bouncing in one morning and bounced me off the gas-stove.His hair was ruffled and his face was flushed and his eyes were flashing sparks."My God!" he cried. "I—I've made a weird, a wild, a terrible discovery. Good God, who would have thought it! That child, mind you, that imbecile. 'God, sir, if this were a humane and Christian country, I should be allowed to call the damned beast out and carve patterns on him.""You are referring to——""Prudence—Prudence," responded Baffin, with agitation. "She HAS TOLD ME ALL. Come in and see her."Prudence had flung herself down upon a grimy sugar-box, and lay there, still and bruised and broken. There was an awful quiet in the room.Baffin resumed his remarks in reference to the subject of damned beasts. I hushed him with a grave, paternal glance."Think of poor Prudence," I said.Prudence rose slowly to her feet. She thrust back the hair from before her eyes."Oh, my Gawd! Mr. Baffin," she said, "you do gow in for the funniest talk ever! 'Ere—I say, when I was down there, do you know what I see? I see as there is a crack in that sugar-box; I do believe that's where I dropped that picture powstcard what I lorst 'ere last sittin'."Oo-er, it will be all right if we can find it there, wown't it, now? I 'ave missed that card, I can't tell you! 'Cos my mother give me that card, an' I love everythink what my mother gives me. You dunnowwhata good mother I got, Mr. Baffin. She's working 'ard all day to bring me up proper, she is, an' the place on 'er arm iseverso bad still. If on'y I could learn to sit still, I could earn a lot of menny to give to my mother, couldn't I, Mr. Baffin? 'Cos you said so, didn't you, Mr. Baffin?"See if I don't learn to sit still; people that try can always succeed, can't they? My mother often tells me that. Be a dear, an' move the box, Mr. Baffin."We moved the box, but the card was not there; and Prudence succumbed to a fresh outbreak of tears, and had to be comforted with condensed milk, which she relished in spoonfuls direct from the tin. We rescued this stimulant from Prudence in time to avert the tragedy of an overdose; and then she departed. "I got a friend waitin' for me," she said, "an' my mother said I was to be 'ome early. An' this is my mother's ironin' night.... 'Ere, Mr. Baffin—was you laughin' at me when I come over funny on the box there? 'Cos I won't sit for anybody what laughs at me. I'll go out charrin', an' spoil me 'ands, that's what I'll do. Don't you think I could learn to do charrin' if I wanted to? I can learn a lot if I try.""Don't spoil your hands," said Baffin; "they are beautiful hands."Baffin did not flatter her. Prudence's hands were as the hands of a lute-player—slender and white and sensitive, flowing from wrists which carried themselves subtly, like a fair swan's neck. Such hands, I believe, may be produced by the simple process of being folded gracefully for ten generations. We often wondered, Baffin and I, whence Prudence derived those hands. That much-talked-of lady, Prudence's mother, had never been presented to us; but—frail hands and a frail spirit! Which of these was the mother's gift?"Hee! hee!" giggled Prudence, as she spread the little hands before her, "yew ain't 'arf a tease, are yew, Mr. Baffin? ... Funny 'ands fur charrin', ain't they, though? ... May I flap your letter-box as I go out? It don't 'arf rattle. Oo, Iema silly girl,Iem! 'Ere, I say—when I come to sit agen, shall I bring my mouth-organ, and show you 'ow I'm learnin' meself to play 'The Bluebells of Scotland'? An' you'll look for my picture card, wown't you, 'cos my mother give it to me? And please let me sit agen soon. Oy revoy."When it became quite clear, from the silence of the letter-box flap, that Prudence had wholly departed, Baffin sat himself wearily down and groaned."What the deuce ought one to do?" he demanded, with great earnestness."This being your affair," I answered, "you will have to think out that little problem for yourself. The circumstance of your living in a Christian country will not ... prove helpful.""Don't tell Brink," said Baffin. "He'll want to poison her."
XXXI
AN INTERLUDE
One result of my acquaintanceship with Doctor Brink is not entirely pleasant. I have developed a sort of interest in poor people.
I am always lighting, in odd corners, upon what I call "Brink cases." Such experiences pursue me even into respectable places. I bumped into one, lately, within a stone's throw of the Houses of Parliament, to which place I was bound at midnight.
The clouds were showing heavy and black upon a moonlit sky as I turned on to the Thames Embankment by Hungerford Bridge, so that I shivered extensively. These September nights, at best, do not add much to the pleasures of a promenade. But this night was especially unconducive to philosophic loitering. There was wind, and that constant, dull foreshadowing of rain which is worse than a deluge. There were those hurrying, hump-backed clouds, and their indefinite reflection upon the greasy surface of the Thames. And the clock struck twelve, and a policeman by my elbow spat and swore. And some vessel far up stream gave harrowing expression to its feelings by means of that dismal instrument which is humorously called a syren. Like the mysterious stranger in the story books, I drew my travelling cloak around me, and shuddered at the windy vastness of it all.
And then I fell to smiling. For away yonder, in the mirk, figures were moving and bobbing, and, by all the saints that care for vagrants, it seemed to me that their movements suggested mirth.
"These must be weird people," thought I to myself, as I went towards them, "who can find anything to laugh at in this place?" As I drew close up to them their figures stood out more clearly against the great wall of the Embankment; and I saw that the prime cause of this apparent joyfulness was a girl—a girl who was very young, and rather graceful.
She wore an old straw hat and a heavy shawl, after the manner of her kind, and one end of the shawl was much longer than the other, and was caught up into a bundle beneath her arm. So that I guessed her to be carrying a baby.
One of her companions was a middle-aged man of round and rather stupid build. As I came up he was moving slowly from one foot to the other, and wagging his head. He wore a ragged overcoat, which was buttoned to his ears, and he was waving an arm about in a manner which appeared to be admonitory.
The group was completed by a second man, younger than the other, and taller. He was holding a hand to his face, which the girl had evidently buffeted. The young fellow was saying something which I could not catch in a plaintive voice, and the girl—jocund creature—was leaning against the wall, swaying and shaking with silent laughter.
That mournful syren still jarred upon one's ears, and set a cog-wheel running up one's backbone; the dark clouds jostled each other as before, and were reflected in the oily sludge beneath them; the wind blew from every quarter at once, and the fallen leaves that lay upon the footway rustled in it like a shroud. And this girl leaned up against a pillar and shook herself with laughter.
Then I went closer still and perceived my folly. The girl was not laughing at all. That which I had supposed to be mirth was really its opposite. The girl wascrying—crying silently and effectively, and without ostentation. When feminine lamentations are conducted with this sort of restraint there is usually a reason for them.
The stupid man spoke to the girl. "Why don't you take 'eed to what 'Erb says?" he demanded. "Why dontchew go 'ome? There's sense in what 'Erb says."
And then the young man spoke, saying, "That's right, ole Emma. Come along 'ome, ole Emma."
The girl crept closer to the wall, flattened herself against it, as if she sought protection there. "I—I wown't gow 'owm," she said, between the sobs. "I wown't move from 'ere, I wown't, till it's nine o'clock. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine o'clock.' 'Come back at nine o'clock,' he said. You 'eard what 'e said, 'Erb. I wown't move from 'ere, I wown't."
'Erb went closer to her. They were all so occupied with this discussion that I am sure my presence was not observed. It was as though I wore some mantle of invisibility. I could have danced a hornpipe, I believe, without attracting notice.... "What's the good of talkin' like that?" said 'Erb to the girl. "Come along 'ome, Emma."
"I wown't move astepfrom 'ere, I wown't," responded Emma. "You 'ear what I say? I wown't move, I tell you. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine o'clock,' an' at nine o'clock I'm goin' back—to see my baby.
"... If youwasa man you'd take me overnow"—she pointed, vaguely, in the direction of Charing Cross Hospital—"you'd take me back and fight 'em, you would, till they let us in. What they want to turn us out till mornin' for?
"I wanter see my baby, I do. My baby'll die afore it's morning.
"'Come back at nine,' the gentleman said; and all its pore arm turned stiff, an' white, an' swollen. What you wanter move that lamp for, you fool? Why did you open the door? Did you 'ear 'im 'oller? Oh, Christ! did you 'ear 'im 'oller? We'll lose 'im, 'Erb: my Gawd! we'll lose 'im. Did you 'ear what the gentleman said? 'Come back at nine to-morrow mornin',' 'e said. What'd 'e want to turn us out for, the swine? What you want to go 'owm for? My baby'sthere, you ape: over there, with the nurse an' the gentleman. Think I'd go 'owm wiv the likes o'youan' leave 'im? What you wanter move that lamp for? Did you see it runnin' all over 'im, an' 'im 'ollerin', an' cuttin' 'is feet in the glass of the chimbly?
"Did you—did you? Go away, I tell you. I wown't move, I tell you. The gentleman said, 'Come back at nine.' What you wanter worry me for? What you wanter stop for? I want my baby—I—I—you makeshift, you, I'ateyou."
And the young man twisted his cap between his fingers, and drew a little closer to her, and said, "Come along 'ome."
"Yus, go along 'ome," supplemented the stupid man. "You can't stop out 'ere all night. And what's the good o' worryin'? People's got to pay for bein' married an' that inthisworld. It might be worse, you know, young Emma——"
"Ah!" interpolated the younger man. "It might be worse, you know, ole Emma!"
"What is it, after all," pursued his stout companion, "what is it, after all, to bury a baby? I remember well when we was nailin' up our Number Three——"
The stout man's reminiscences ended suddenly. It was the fist of the younger man which ended them. "Chew that, ye one-eyed wind-bag," observed its owner.
Then, drawing Emma gently from the wall, he placed his arm about her, and whispered something in a voice which aspired clumsily to be hopeful. Now that the girl was facing me, I could see that she did not carry a child, as I had at first supposed. It was merely an end of shawl which she carried—a rude sort of nest or pocket, pressed close to her bosom, as if in waiting for some tender burden.
"Come along 'ome, ole girl," the young man urged. "What's the use o' dawdlin'?"
"Go away!" replied the woman. "Leave a girl in peace, can't you? I'm waitin' for my baby. I'm waitin' for nine o'clock, like the gentleman said.... I wonder if 'e's sleepin'? I wonder if they've 'urt 'im? ... I wonder if he's dead?"
"Ain't you comin' 'ome?" pleaded the man.
"Ain't you goin' away?" the woman answered. "What's the good o' pesterin'? Can't you 'ear what I tell you? Do you wanter send me mad—fussin' an' pesterin'?
"There's a clock; one, now, an' the gentleman said nine."
"That was 'arpas' twelve struck then," observed the stout man.
"And the gentleman said nine," sighed the girl.
"Think e'll 'ave 'is mind back be the mornin', 'Erb? 'E never knowed nothin' when we left; never knowed nothin' when I carried 'im out from 'ome. Did you see 'ow fast 'is teeth was? Did—— The gentleman said, 'Don't worry.' Must be a fool. What did you wanter move the lamp for?"
"Table was so full, an' the cloth was draggin'. Anyone might 'a' stepped on it. I never meant no 'arm, ole Emma."
"Bin all right if the door was shut. Might be nursin' 'im now, 'Erb, in yere overcoat, 'stead of 'im—— Did you see ow drored out 'is fingers was when the gentleman come to look? 'Ow long before nine? Think they'd let us in before? It's all through that door bein' open. That curtain it—— Gawd's Truth, 'Erb, it was thenoocurtain what I put up yesterday. It wasmycurtain.Idone it, I killed my baby."
"'Eain't killed," asserted the fat man. "Be as right as I am in a twel'month."
"I put up that curtain to show off; that's all I put it up for. And it blew on to the lamp, an' it—it—Gawd blind me, I've killed my baby."
"That's a lie!" shouted the man. "Didn't I leave the door open? Didn't I shove the dam thing right under the curtain? Begod, I did. Don't tell lies to yeself, ole Emma. It was me as done it. It was me as burnt that little beggar's arm. Wish to Gawd I'd burnt me eyes out first."
"Go' bless my soul," observed the stupid man, "whatisthe use of quarrellin' over trifles? Whatever does it matter whether the lamp moved the curtain or the curtain moved the lamp? Thing's done, ain't it? Boy's arm's all charred up. Why argue? Take an' get a good night's sleep. Ain't we all 'ad trouble? When my first went down——"
"I 'it 'im to-day," said the woman. "For eatin' coal, it was."
The man drew her hand into his, which was not more rough and shapeless. "'E thought the world o' you, ole Emma," he observed.
"'Ow long to nine o'clock, 'Erb? 'Ow long afore they'll let us see 'im? The gentleman said, 'Don't worry.' ... We was mad to leave 'is cradle there."
"It's all so full in the room," replied 'Erb. "I was gointer move next quarter. Allus next quarter, Gawd strike me! If we'd took that room we was lookin' at Easter time, there was gas there an'—an'——"
"Iwantedto 'ave it," whined the woman.
"When," pursued her husband, "when I was puttin' them rockers on the sugar-box, Ididsay as we'd 'ave a 'ooded top, to finish it. But I changed me mind. Devil take me! I changed me mind."
"It'd 'a' saved 'im, that would," observed the woman. "We'd 'a' found 'im sittin' up an' laughin' at the fireworks.... Remember that day when the water come in?"
"R!" answered the man. "Rare tickled 'e was. Remembers it to this day. I'll lay any money 'e was tryin' to tell me about it when we was in the park o' Sunday. 'E——"
"Oh, Christ! my baby," cried the woman; and she lay sobbing in his arms.
He led her to a seat, and she cried silently upon his shoulder for a long, long while. When she next spoke it was to wonder about the time. "Is itverylong to nine o'clock?" she inquired. And the man said, "Not so very. You lie still, ole Emma: you're all right; you lie still."
Then Emma remembered that by moving the tin trunk which stood by the wash-stand to an empty niche beneath the table, a place of security might have been provided for that sugar-box. And they discussed all the other might-have-beens: and his beauty, and cheerfulness, and the surprising precocity of his speech. She trembled, and sobbed and sobbed, and her husband swore. They talked about all the other might-have-beens again; and the stupid man faced them, scratching his head, and saying:
"Whatisthe use of all this argument?"
After which the constabulary arrived, and flashed lamps upon them; and they rose heavily, and moved away.
But I found them, presently, upon another seat. Emma's blue-white face was upon her husband's shoulder, and her lips were tightly clenched as she spoke to him. "'Ow long we got to wait till nine o'clock?" she asked.
"Not so long," replied the man.... "You lie still, ole Emma."
She sighed, very slowly. And I noticed that a hummock of shawl was caught up close beneath her arm.
XXXII
LOW FINANCE
He was a self-complacent, ox-voiced man, and being clothed on with his Sunday blacks, he looked objectionable. He surged into Dr. Brink's consulting-room all frothy and foamy with fellowship. "Evenin', Doc.," he gurgled. '"Ow's yeself?"
"Let me see your tongue?" said the doctor, who was tired and absent-minded. This was the ninety-seventh tongue which he had clamoured for that day: a fact which perhaps accounted for the absence from his manner of that sympathetic and anecdotal touch which distinguishes those learned men who follow the reputable or credit branch of his profession.
"It ain't about meself I've come, ole man," explained the visitor. "Leastways," he added, with an air as of scrupulous exactitude, "it ain't about me present self. I come to thank you for all your goodness to me during my accident."
The doctor responded with a wondering stare.
"I come to thank you for all your goodness to me, Doc.," repeated the man. "And," he added, as one giving utterance to a careless afterthought, "to see about my little bill."
"When did I attend you?" demanded the doctor.
"When did you attend me?" repeated the patient reproachfully. "Why, you attended me twice. I am that serious driving accident what you was called in to look at four weeks ago. And I bin round to see you once since then."
"Serious driving accident," mused the doctor. Then—with an acid smile—"I think I remember now. The accident suddenly showed itself in your shoulder, didn't it, five days after the occurrence? And I couldn't find the place, could I? Not even a bruise."
"It was very painful, Doctor," explained the invalid; "one of them inward bruises. They do say as that's the worst sort o' damage as kin 'appen to a man, getting a inward bruise, same's what I did. I bin layed up fower weeks 'long o' that accident."
"And it took five days to mature. Ever heard of a disease called 'afterthought'?"
"Can't say rightly as I 'ave," admitted the sufferer.
"It is a curious sort of complaint," the doctor explained; "attacks a man very often in cases like this. Quite small things aggravate it, too; talkative friends, for example."
"Will you make the bill out, Doctor?" requested the victim of this strange ailment.
"No need for a bill, is there?" said the doctor. "I can tell you what you owe me out of hand. One visit to your house, one consultation here: total, eighteenpence."
"I'd prefer a proper invoice, Doctor," admitted the maimed one. "And look 'ere, ole man, make it out fur a sovereign, will ye? I ... I want to show it to my firm."
"With pleasure," said the doctor. "Have you brought the sovereign with you?"
"Eh?" snapped the man.
"I asked if you had brought the sovereign," repeated the doctor. "If your firm is prepared to pay me a sovereign for my services to you, I shall, of course, be delighted to make out a bill for that amount."
"But you on'y seed me twice," protested the visitor.
"That is what I wish to point out. My proper fees amount to eighteen pence. But if you want to pay me a p——"
"Idon'twanter to pay you a pound," bellowed the petitioner angrily. "Nothing so ridiculous."
"In that case," responded the doctor, "let us say no more about the bill."
"Do you call yeself a genelman?" demanded this martyred soul, with a choke in his voice. "Do you call yeself a genelman to stop a pore drayman from earnin' his honest compensation? 'Ow'm I goin' on for compensation?"
"Compensation for what?" inquired the doctor.
"Fur me accident," replied the man. "I bin laid up fower weeks."
"One day of which," the doctor pointed out, "you spent in bed. Did they stop your wages?"
"Well, no," admitted the martyr. "They paid me me wages all right. But I ain't drored nothink fur me accident."
"You drew a very comfortable holiday, at any rate," suggested the doctor. "A four weeks' rest cure on full wages. And that shoulder, you know, it was not what one could call a permanent injury: it hardly amounted to disablement. Do you think so?"
"Words," stated the sufferer, "cannot describe the agonies what I bin through."
"You surprise me," murmured Dr. Brink. "Anyhow, you've been strong enough to do a lot of standing about outside the 'African Chief.'"
"What if I 'ave?" submitted the injured man. "Ain't I still entitled to compensation fur my accident?"
"It seems to me you've had it," argued the doctor.
"That I ain't," asserted the indignant claimant; "not a blighted 'a'penny."
"Four weeks' rest, full pay," recited the doctor, with an air of monotony.
"Wiv me shoulder-blade all to Bucklesbury," added the claimant. "And not a brazen farthing fur me accident. I 'ad the corpuscular accident all right, I suppose? Ye don't deny it, do ye?"
"By no means," exclaimed the doctor. "Didn't I myself attend you for a unique complaint in the shoulder-blade?"
"Very well, then," pursued the invalid, somewhat mollified by this admission. "In that case I demand my rights. I demand the rights of a honest workin' man. I ask for compensation for my accident, same's what I'm entitled to accordin' to lor. Will you write out that invoice fur me?"
"Certainly: for the exact amount which you may care to pay me."
"Do you call yeself a man?" demanded the visitor, with heightened colour. "What the scarlet letter do ye reckon I engaged ye for? Think I wanted ye for the sake of yere filthy physic? Ain't ye got no 'eart? Make out the invoice like a fair-minded man. Never tell me as you'd 'ave the 'eart to rob a pore man of 'is money.... They've refused to give me compensation fur my accident, and now 'ere's you—a genelman born, as oughta be above sich actions—you're gointer rob a pore man of 'is doctor's bill.... Besides, Itole'em that I owed a sovereign to the doctor, and they tells me to produce the invoice.... What am I to tell my firm?"
"Tell them what you like," replied the doctor. "I certainly shall give you no receipt for money which I haven't had."
"Then 'ow do I go on?" queried the visitor.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
'"Ow'm I goin' on fur compensation—fur my accident?"
The doctor repeated his shrug. "It seems to me," he said, "that your firm has treated you well. You don't know much, you know."
"I may be a fool," admitted the afflicted one, "but I know my rights. I oughter be paid some compensation fur me accident.... You won't do nothing to 'elp me, then?"
"I can't," replied the doctor. "What you want is a new head."
"Do I?" retorted the caller, flourishing his wounded arm. "That's the very thing asyou'llbe needin', ole sport, if ever I meets you outside. Call yeself a man?Icall you a swindlin' 'pothecary. I tell you one thing, Mister Whatsitname. Whenever I 'as another haccident, I takes it to the bloomin' 'orspital. I do knowthatmuch. See?"
XXXIII
THE MOTHERS' MEETING
The morning callers at Dr. Brink's dispensary are all of them women or little children. You may suppose that the waiting-room wears then a strange and wistful air, for the men being absent, with their hoarse, funereal pleasantries, and the shuffling young boys being absent too, and the girls likewise, having carried their titters and squeaks to the factory, there is not much to amuse folk in the waiting-room.
You cannot expect a married woman to be very cheerful at the best of times, and when there is the place to tidy and the rent man expected, and the children will soon be coming home for their slabs and what not, and you have slipped out just for half a tick to get that dizzy feeling seen to, it is more than usually dull to be sat in a row with twenty other females, similarly cursed—some of them having babies at their breasts or little squalling things what hold fast to their skirts, and the place that stuffy and all, and a stink of iodine coming out of the doctor's room. Taking one consideration with another, it is not to be wondered at that the morning patients do not wear that air of curiosity and pleasure which a visit to the doctor should properly occasion.
The morning patients have an absent-minded look—a dull, foreboding look, as of people who are too busy really to enjoy themselves. Some of them, also, are accompanied by their button-holes or other objects of light and profitable home employment, at which they work with assiduity whilst waiting for the doctor's call. Others, upon the other hand, bring peppermint drops. One lady has brought some literature—the outward wrapper of an ancient issue of a paper calledThe Pilot. So there they loll, all silent, many of them yawning—out of rudeness, or boredom, or fatigue, or something, one supposes.
If you sit upon the gas-stove, you can watch them all as they come into the consulting-room. You can watch, for instance, the experienced matron, who enters with the baby thatwon'tget well, and dumps it down, in a business-like manner, upon the doctor's table.
"There you are," she says in the manner of one who has successfully completed a conjuring trick, "look at that tongue. Dideveryou see sich a thrush?"
"M'yes!" admits the doctor. "It's pretty bad. I'll give you a powder and some syrup."
"Powder? Syrup?" echoes the matron. "H'm! Pity you can't give 'im a corfin. That's the on'y treatment what'll give any peace tothispore little swine. What mercy,Isay, is there in letting a thing like this live on? Look at it."
When, to your great relief, the experienced matron goes away, you will be very lucky if you do not wish her back again, for it is ten to one that she will be followed by an apprentice to the trade, a poor wild thing whose senseless, shiftless, screaming mother-agony will hurt you ever so much more than the grim philosophy of the veteran.
"It seems to grip 'im, Doctor," the apprentice will say, "and throw 'im down, pore lamb, an' wrestle with 'im, Doctor, same's there was a fish-bone in 'is little throat, and 'im so weak, 'e don't have strength enough to 'oller, and 'im so blue and mottled, Doctor, and strangled-looking in the face, and the powder, that ain't doin' 'im no good. The Irishwoman down below, she dreamt she seed 'im in a shroud, and, Doctor, I see meself as 'e gets thinner, and I believe me milk 'as got some poison in it, along of some oysters what I eat one Sunday, and so I see 'im gettin' thinner, Doctor, and there's the strangled look a-comin'now! Won't you give 'im somethink, Doctor? What did you say I was to take 'im to the breast for? I tell you my milk 'as got the microbes in it. Oh, Christ! what can a womando? And Mine he comes 'ome late and stands and swears at me wiv no more feelin' than a 'og. Me gran'father Murphy's eyes 'e's got. There, then, sonny; there, then. What'll you do for 'im, Doctor? I seed a black cat on our winder-sill last night. My Gawd!—see 'ow it grips 'im!"
By the time you feel disposed to come back to the gas-stove again it will be seen that the apprentice mother has given place to a grandmamma, who has looked in, as a friend, to mention that much gossip is arising in consequence of the extreme youth of Dr. Brink's apothecary.
Far be it from her—Elizabeth Tebbings—to be one as would carry idle tales or utter idle plaint, but the fact remained and could be very solemnly attested by many honest witnesses from Mulberry Buildings that the medicine which she, Elizabeth Tebbings, had last Tuesday week received from the apothecary possessed a strange, unusual, and forbidding flavour—a nasty-nice sort of flavour which gave you shivers down your back.
"Far be it from me," protested Mrs. Tebbings, "to cast no slur, especially when the parints of the party has been friends and neighbours along with anybody—good neighbours, too—'is father especially being the 'andsomest man in the Customs service—but the truth is the truth even though a young man's parintsisbeknown to you, and to tell you the truth ofthisaffair, Doctor, young Wilfered Crage 'eisyoung—a mere boy, Doctor, if you understand my meanin'. And, unwilling as I am, 'avin' come to a motherly time of life, for to kerry tales, still I must say—speaking friendly, mind you, Doctor—that the medicinedidtaste ugly. Me brother Joseph tells me there was stricknyne in it."
The doctor, having closely examined the water-tap in Wilfered's official laboratory, is heard to assure Mrs. Tebbings that her fears of strychnine poisoning are groundless, and that lady goes out with her confidence partially restored. "At the same time," she insists from the threshold, "the boyisyoung. And you got to remember that some of your patients'avedied sudden, Doctor. Look at that girl wiv 'earts disease what lived in our basement!"
The next woman to enter has come to "engage." "I expect about the first week in September," she says. "An' if you please I'd like to pay a couple o' shillin' orf me ticket now. An', if you please, Doctor, will you give me the ticket with the two shillin' wrote orf? On'y will you give me another ticket, too, without nothink wrote orf? I want one so's I kin show it to me 'usband, see, Doctor? 'Cause if 'e see as I bin able to pay orf any, 'e'll say as I kin pay the lot orf, and I want to git a little 'elp from 'im, Doctor, so's to 'elp me over it all."
This mild and unreproachful statement will probably provide you with a subject of thought. But your attention is diverted from that theme by the sudden appearance of one more mother—a hearty, stalwart, red-faced mother, with an ample bosom.
This mother produces from behind the door a hearty, stalwart, red-faced boy. "'Is teef is rotten, Doctor," she explains. "I brought 'im round to 'ave 'em out. There's three wants coming out. They're all the same side. See 'em?"
"I see them," replies the doctor. "But three teeth at—er—one sitting! Isn't thatrathera tall order? Don't you think, perhaps, now, that we'd better take out only two to-day and leave the other one for treatment later on?"
The mother grins extensively, shaking her jolly head.
"Never mind, Doctor," she says, "let's 'ave 'em all out. It's on'y eighteenpence."
XXXIV
THE WOES OF WILFERED
Wilfered, the 'Pothecary, hath a sorrow, or rather two sorrows, if not more than that.
Some of these sorrows have reference to his master's interests; and it was in the capacity of Doctor Brink's familiar friend that I was privileged to learn some details of Wilfered's private and professional afflictions.
We were in the dispensary, Wilfered having just explained that there were limits to the things which even he could stand; that the affections of a man and a 'Pothecary could be toyed with once too often, when a little maid came in. She was quite a little maid—some four to five spans high—the top of her dishevelled head being scarcely on a level with the ledge of Wilfered's peep-hole—that mysterious recess through which he views and governs the multitude within the doctor's waiting-room. The little maiden, having rapped authoritatively upon the wainscoting, held up an arm with a penny at the end of it, and a face enamelled over with soot and treacle. Said this client, speaking quickly—
"Penny powder for a baby six months owld."
Wilfered's expression of general discontent changed to one of immediate and particular disgust. "What do you say?" he demanded of the client.
"Please," murmured that lady, with the air of one triumphantly conscious of that which was expected of her.
Wilfered solemnly shook his head. "Never mind about yere manners," said Wilfered. "What d'ye want?"
"Penny powder for a baby six months owld," repeated the child.
Wilfered turned from the client to me, a look as of despair upon his face.
"This is the sorter thing you gotter contend against," he complained.
Then addressing himself once more to the child, he uttered a sort of formula which he keeps for these emergencies—
"We don't sell powders yere. If you wanter powder, go to the chimmis."
The infant looked at him hopelessly. "Mover told me to come yere," she said.
"Under the circumstances," responded Wilfered, uttering another formula, "we will let you 'ave the powder. We won't sell it. We'llgiveit you. Nex' time, go to the chimmis."
"That's the sorter thing you gotter contend against," said Wilfered again, as the client departed.
He was about to repeat this observation for the third time, when his thoughts were distracted by the entry of another juvenile client—an older and taller girl than the last, though hardly a cleaner one.
"Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld," demanded the new-comer. She was the possessor of a wide, immovable smile.
Wilfered bestowed another of his speaking glances upon your servant. And to the client he repeated his formula: "We don't sell powders yere, my gal. If you wanter powder, go to the chimmis."
The lady listened to this statement with an attentive air. Then she spoke again, saying, "Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld."
"We don't sell powders, I tell you," responded Wilfered.
"No," said the girl, "but you give 'em."
Wilfered extended his head a further inch through the peep-hole. His nose and that of the client almost touched each other.
"This is a noo game, ain't it?" demanded Wilfered.
"What next? 'Cause we 'appen to give you a powder once, out of our generosity, seem to think you on'y got to come in yere to get one on the nod atenny minnit. Go to the chimmis."
"Ma towld me to come yere," protested the client.
"Then," said Wilfered, "you go 'ome an' tell yere Ma as I refuse to serve ye. Seem to take us for a 'firmary. We don't sell powders, nor we don't give 'em—except first time to a reg'lar customer what does not know our rules. And if we was to sell powders, it wouldn't be for a penny, me gel.
"These powders," continued the loyal but shameless 'Pothecary, "are made up outer the very best drugs. They costusfrippence. You go 'ome an' tell yere motherthat."
The lady went home, to be followed, in the course of nature—this being, as it were, "the children's hour"—by another lady, younger and smaller than any of her predecessors, demanding "A penny powder for——"
"'Oose baby?" demanded Wilfered.
"Baby four months old," replied the messenger.
"'Oosebaby?" repeated Wilfered.
"My baby," said the child.
"You bin 'ere afore about your baby?" inquired the 'Pothecary.
"No," said the messenger.
"Oh," mused Wilfered. "What name?"
"'Ilder," said the messenger.
"Mother's name, I mean," explained Wilfered.
"Mrs. Bates, Mulberry Street," said Mrs. Bates's emissary.
And Wilfered repeated his formula: "Tell yere mother as we'llgive'er the powder this once, but nex' time you must send to the chimmis. We don't sell powders yere."
Mrs. Bates's daughter, having received her powder, and being as yet without a proper understanding, deposited the penny with which she had been entrusted upon the ledge of Wilfered's peep-hole, and bolted from the waiting-room.
Wilfered gazed upon this coin with an air of indecision. Finally, he picked it up (between a finger and thumb) and flung it into the till. His actions said plainer than words that he possessed a professional sentiment which was outraged at the thought of accepting this tainted money.
And then—for events move quickly in Bovingdon Street—who should come bouncing in again but the big girl whom he had previously dismissed—she of the immovable smile.
"Penny soothin' powder for a baby eight months owld," said the big girl.
Wilfered was at first unable to speak; but when he did so, it was with point and emphasis.
"I suppose," he said, with scorn, at the end of his address, "as you kin understand plain English? Wedown't sell powders. And if we did, we couldn't sell 'em for a penny. These powders costusfrippence. Did ye tell yere mother that?"
"Yus," responded the girl, "but mother says she can't 'elpyourtroubles."
Wilfered held on to the pill-tub and looked wildly about him. Then, with a deep-drawn sigh, he held out a powder and took the penny.
"What is the use o' arguin?" he demanded of your servant. "Look what you got to contend against."
XXXV
STILL MORE OF PRUDENCE
Baffin came bouncing in one morning and bounced me off the gas-stove.
His hair was ruffled and his face was flushed and his eyes were flashing sparks.
"My God!" he cried. "I—I've made a weird, a wild, a terrible discovery. Good God, who would have thought it! That child, mind you, that imbecile. 'God, sir, if this were a humane and Christian country, I should be allowed to call the damned beast out and carve patterns on him."
"You are referring to——"
"Prudence—Prudence," responded Baffin, with agitation. "She HAS TOLD ME ALL. Come in and see her."
Prudence had flung herself down upon a grimy sugar-box, and lay there, still and bruised and broken. There was an awful quiet in the room.
Baffin resumed his remarks in reference to the subject of damned beasts. I hushed him with a grave, paternal glance.
"Think of poor Prudence," I said.
Prudence rose slowly to her feet. She thrust back the hair from before her eyes.
"Oh, my Gawd! Mr. Baffin," she said, "you do gow in for the funniest talk ever! 'Ere—I say, when I was down there, do you know what I see? I see as there is a crack in that sugar-box; I do believe that's where I dropped that picture powstcard what I lorst 'ere last sittin'.
"Oo-er, it will be all right if we can find it there, wown't it, now? I 'ave missed that card, I can't tell you! 'Cos my mother give me that card, an' I love everythink what my mother gives me. You dunnowwhata good mother I got, Mr. Baffin. She's working 'ard all day to bring me up proper, she is, an' the place on 'er arm iseverso bad still. If on'y I could learn to sit still, I could earn a lot of menny to give to my mother, couldn't I, Mr. Baffin? 'Cos you said so, didn't you, Mr. Baffin?
"See if I don't learn to sit still; people that try can always succeed, can't they? My mother often tells me that. Be a dear, an' move the box, Mr. Baffin."
We moved the box, but the card was not there; and Prudence succumbed to a fresh outbreak of tears, and had to be comforted with condensed milk, which she relished in spoonfuls direct from the tin. We rescued this stimulant from Prudence in time to avert the tragedy of an overdose; and then she departed. "I got a friend waitin' for me," she said, "an' my mother said I was to be 'ome early. An' this is my mother's ironin' night.... 'Ere, Mr. Baffin—was you laughin' at me when I come over funny on the box there? 'Cos I won't sit for anybody what laughs at me. I'll go out charrin', an' spoil me 'ands, that's what I'll do. Don't you think I could learn to do charrin' if I wanted to? I can learn a lot if I try."
"Don't spoil your hands," said Baffin; "they are beautiful hands."
Baffin did not flatter her. Prudence's hands were as the hands of a lute-player—slender and white and sensitive, flowing from wrists which carried themselves subtly, like a fair swan's neck. Such hands, I believe, may be produced by the simple process of being folded gracefully for ten generations. We often wondered, Baffin and I, whence Prudence derived those hands. That much-talked-of lady, Prudence's mother, had never been presented to us; but—frail hands and a frail spirit! Which of these was the mother's gift?
"Hee! hee!" giggled Prudence, as she spread the little hands before her, "yew ain't 'arf a tease, are yew, Mr. Baffin? ... Funny 'ands fur charrin', ain't they, though? ... May I flap your letter-box as I go out? It don't 'arf rattle. Oo, Iema silly girl,Iem! 'Ere, I say—when I come to sit agen, shall I bring my mouth-organ, and show you 'ow I'm learnin' meself to play 'The Bluebells of Scotland'? An' you'll look for my picture card, wown't you, 'cos my mother give it to me? And please let me sit agen soon. Oy revoy."
When it became quite clear, from the silence of the letter-box flap, that Prudence had wholly departed, Baffin sat himself wearily down and groaned.
"What the deuce ought one to do?" he demanded, with great earnestness.
"This being your affair," I answered, "you will have to think out that little problem for yourself. The circumstance of your living in a Christian country will not ... prove helpful."
"Don't tell Brink," said Baffin. "He'll want to poison her."