Front matter

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY: MCMIX

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

Arthur's. With a Cover-design by W. Graham Robertson. Crown 8vo. Second Edition.

TO K. L. S.

CONTENTS

Introductory

Concerning James

First Impressions

Sixpences

The Hypocrites

Conatus

On The Properties of Water

The Way of the East

The 'Pothecary

The Mother's Trade Union

The Diagnosis

The Tuskers

Art Lovers

Three Babies

Ingrates

Baffin's Find

Mr. West's Wife

Three Dialogues

Curing the Curer

Milk!

Two Patients

Lost!

The Survivor

More of Prudence

A Talk with James

The April Barge

The Case of Mrs. Roper

The Black Hat

On Earning Sixpence

Dialogue with a Bride

An Interlude

Low Finance

The Mothers' Meeting

The Woes of Wilfered

Still More of Prudence

A Birthday Party

The Moral Sense

Love and Hate

On a Dead Policeman

Mrs. Gluckstein

Of Human Kindness

The Last

SIXPENNY PIECES

I

INTRODUCTORY

I was a beautiful evening in the month of May.

The stars were shining.

The beautiful moon looked beautifully forth from her beautiful throne.

A nightingale greeted her with a beautiful sonnet. England—our England—bore upon her bosom the beautiful perfume of woodruff and the wild clover. In Bovingdon Street, London, E., a lover was kicking his sweetheart.

That was the beginning of this book. I happened to be standing at Mr. Wilson's coffee stall. And I heard the screaming. And I saw some shadows moving briskly, like the funny silhouettes on the blind at a pantomime. And some of us laughed and some of us whined and one of us blew a whistle. And the constabulary arrived, and with their coming the tumult died. And they brought the girl to the light of the stall, and her face was bruised and swollen and she lost her voice. But before doing so she was able to assure us that "'E done it in drink." "'E" was removed under escort.

They did not take her to a hospital, because there was a round little man at the stall who prevented them from doing so. "Lemme alone," the lady had remarked, upon regaining speech. "Don't you worry me. I'm all right, I am. I got my doctor 'ere: this genelman in the top 'at. Ain't that right, sir? You are my doctor, ain't you?"

"That is so," said the round little man, "I'm her doctor. Shift your dam carcases and give the woman some air."

"There you are," gasped the woman, "what did I tell you? He is my doctor. I got 'is confinement card in me pocket this minute."

"She can't stop 'ere you know, Dr. Brink," expostulated a constable.

"I'll take her home," said the round man.

"Be a lot better in the 'orspital," muttered the constable.

"I'm obliged for your opinion, officer; but I think I'll have my own way this time. Catch hold of her middle, will you, Sonny?"

It was your servant who had the honour to be addressed as Sonny, and he hastened to do the little round man's bidding. When we had got the lady into a perpendicular attitude, the doctor put his arm about her, and, anticipating the little man's commands, your servant did the same. And so we led her from the stall, all the cut-throats of Bovingdon Street following reverently behind us. Happily our march was not a long one, for the patient lived in Smith Street; and Smith Street, as everybody knows, is the second turning past the African Chief beer-house in Bovingdon Street. Short as the journey was, however, I could have wished it to be shorter: for the cut-throats pressed us close, breathing thickly about our ears; and the woman weighed heavy, having no manner of use for her legs and being stupid in the head. She only spoke once during the walk, and that was to say, in a drowsy sort of monotone: "'E done it—in drink."

We came at last to 13, Smith Street, and the fact that eighteen eager faces were already distributed among the six small windows of that dwelling-house removed my latent fears that our arrival would disturb "the neighbours." The owners of these faces were entirely mute, save for one, an elderly woman, who, in a loud wail, made certain representations to Providence in regard to one 'Erry Barber, whom I understood to be the lusty gallant primarily responsible for this adventure. Having repeated these commands a great number of times, and having exercised undoubted talent in describing 'Erry and 'Erry's parentage, the old woman proceeded to chronicle her views respecting a vast number of alien subjects. At last this lady had the great misfortune to "catch her breath," at which the doctor cut in.

"Stop that beastly noise!" he shouted, "and shut the window, and put on a respectable garment, and come downstairs and let us in."

The lady looked benignly down upon us.

"Go' bless ye, doctor," she exclaimed, "you are a good man. But you didn't ought to talk like that to me. I lorst a son in the Bower war."

At that moment the door was opened by some other dweller in the house. And the doctor and his patient entered in. Not knowing the neighbourhood and not liking it, and being also of a curious nature, I awaited the doctor's return. I had not long to wait. He came out very soon, and we walked away together into clearer air. And the doctor spoke.

"It is a deuced queer thing," he said, "that a man can't stop for five minutes at a dam coffee stall without some fool or other finding work for him. I'll never go to that stall again. I'll be damned if I will. I ought to have got home half an hour ago."

"Yes," I said—I believe that vaguely I sought to comfort him—"and she would have been better off in the infirmary?"

"Don't talk foolishness, young man," replied the round little doctor. "You are talking dam nonsense. Infirmary—pooh! With a baby almost due, and with all those bruises! They would have made a complete job of it there. They would have kept her there for the lying-in and all—a six weeks' job at least."

"And would that matter?"

"Matter? Of course it would. That man will be out in a week, even if our local humorist doesn't let him off with a fine. What's to become of that poor girl's home, do you suppose, while she's in and he's out?"

"Would he touch it?"

"Do you live in this neighbourhood, sir?" The doctor wore a visage as of painful wonder.

I explained that I didn't.

The doctor's wonder grew. "What under heaven are you doing in the purlieus of Mile End Road at two in the morning, then?" he demanded.

"Sir," I said, with grand simplicity, "you behold in me the representative of an inexpensive but celebrated newspaper. I am come here, by editorial instruction, to seek out Blossom, the chimney-sweep philosopher, whose opinion on horse-racing we are anxious to secure for our magazine page. But Blossom has evaporated. Mrs. Blossom vainly seeketh him. So does the other woman's husband. I have prepared a full and detailed report of this disgraceful scandal, which will appear, together with photographs, on our sermon page next Sunday. And as, when I communicated by telephone with my editor, he was so kind as to relieve me from further intellectual activity for the day, and as I do not know Mile End, and as I——"

"Never mind the 'ases,'" interpolated the doctor. "My name is Brink. I like your politics."

"I have no politics," I explained. "But ... I hate my job."

"That is what I mean," replied the doctor. "... So you want me to send this woman to the infirmary, where they will feed her well and keep her warm between white sheets, and give her copies of the Nineteenth Century to read. But during that time, you see, her 'man' and some other woman would be pawning her home. She knows this, and I know it. So I took her home. If she has concussion, of course, she'll have to go; but short of that we can get her through it at home. There's a boilerman's wife in the room above who has rudimentary graces. Infirmary, forsooth! Why, even the respectable married ones would rather pawn their wedding rings than 'lie in' on a public bed. A woman at home is a woman at home, even though she talks through the mouth of a midwife; but when a woman is in hospital William's wages and the marble ornaments are both at William's mercy. And so the women stop at home and call in Brink—Brink—the sixpenny doctor."

I laughed. "Is it really sixpence—your fee, I mean?"

"It is really sixpence. And my income is twelve hundred a year. I used to have a respectable half-guinea practice in Norfolk, and then I was doing eight hundred, and spending it all on dog-carts and dinner-parties. Here I have no expenses at all, except in the matter of top-hats; they insist upon top-hats. And I like the place: I am charmed with the people. Do you like smoked salmon and cold duck?"

"I do."

"Then come inside, and have some. And have a look at James. James will do you good. James is unique. And I can give you a bed, and I can tell you stories, and show you some fun, too—sideways sort of fun—at sixpence a time."

"Sixpenny pieces," I suggested, as his key turned in the lock.

II

CONCERNING JAMES

I have confused impressions of that first visit to the house of Dr. Brink. It was so late when we entered, you see, and all within the house was strange and unexpected, and the duck and Burgundy were very peace-provoking.

The sort of house which I had expected the doctor to inhabit was not at all the sort of house he really lived in. I had, perhaps, no very definite ideas at all. One knows the ordinary doctor's house: a cool and studious consulting-room, having leathern armchairs and a telephone and a stethoscope and some framed engravings after Landseer and a silver goblet which he won at tennis in the eighties and a case of text-books and a mule canary and claret plush curtains and the centenary edition of Sir Walter Scott. And a very quiet and lofty waiting-room, containing all the illustrated papers for last April and a reading-glass and a stereoscope, besides a decanter of water and three clean tumblers.

One knows that sort of house, I say, and likewise the gentle, murmuring press of sufferers which lays siege to it. But the spot-cash practitioners of Mile End Road are rather strange and foreign to us. We do not go into their little, weird consulting-hatches nor sweat amid the tumult of their vulgar patrons. We can imagine what the thing is like: and there are some of us perhaps who imagine truthfully. I didn't.

My imagination did not run to Japanese colour prints and pastel studies, and neatly framed examples of the art of Mr. Nicholson. And yet these things were hung upon the white distempered walls of Dr. Brink's infirmary. I figured the tumult as gazing speechlessly upon these curious East End substitutes for Landseer. "What do they think of them?" I asked the doctor.

"They are much amused," said he. We were standing before a pastel when he spoke—a thing of heavy shadows with purple deeps, wherefrom there stood forth dimly the figures of a crippled man and an old sick woman, and the face of a child with brazen eyes. "Out Patients" was the title of this drawing, and it preached of a divine torture. "They are much amused," said the doctor.

But this was in the morning. That night we did not look at pictures, nor at patients. We sat above and supped off duck and Burgundy. I saw confusedly—it was a pleasant confusion—that there were many good pictures in the house, and that books were everywhere—everywhere. And the bottle was a full one. And we spoke of olives and the Norfolk women.

Then he took me to a little brown room with more books in it, and a bedstead which was of oak and carven.

"Good-night," said the doctor. "You shall see old James to-morrow. You will like old James. Good-night."

* * * * *

When morning came, I had the pleasure of viewing Bovingdon Street in the sunshine.

It was a queer sort of sunshine, to be sure—weak and uncertain and rather dirty: a sort of actinic heel-taps. But I remember thinking that any less shabby form of sunshine would have carried with it an air of disrespect, as though it had come forth to mock at the gloom and ugliness of the thing beneath it. A gloomier, sillier, dirtier street than Bovingdon Street I do not wish to see. But I have seen such all the same. Indeed, I have looked upon some filth and squalor beside which Bovingdon Street is as the Mall compared to Worship Street. So much I must admit in common fairness.

There was at least no actual squalor in the street on which I looked: only dirt and gloom and ugliness. The houses which faced me were comparatively new, and they were small and neat, and of a square and thick-set build. But there happened to be one hundred and sixty of them, each exactly like its neighbour, and having each before its doorway a small pale or enclosure containing—cinders and rags and pieces of paper and battered cans and smudgy babies and hungry cats. And there was grime on all the windows, and in front of them a very vulgar man was selling bloaters, loudly. Also, in all that soot-brown avenue there was one white thing: a hawthorn tree in bloom, which shuddered gently in the fog-shine like a discontented spectre. And those ridiculous fat houses stood there stoutly, shoulder to shoulder, one hundred and sixty of them, eyeing her with dolour. And a voice beneath my window made speech, saying loudly: "You give me my daughter's combings back, ye thievin' slut." So I left the window and lighted a pipe and crawled back into bed.

* * * * *

And then, as the story writers say, a strange thing happened. There came a sudden tap upon my bedroom door, and without further warning there entered in a—a lady. She was rather a young lady, to be sure, some fifteen years of age, perhaps. And she was wearing a petticoat—a striped petticoat—and her hair was dressed into innumerable pigtails, and her top was covered by—by a—a—don't they call it a camisole? And she bade me "Good-morning," very calmly.

"G—G—Good-morning!" I responded. I hoped to heaven that I was not blushing.

"Don't trouble to scream," said the lady, in an off-hand manner. "It is all right: I have come for my stockings."

"Really," I began, a little hotly, "I haven't ta——" And then I stopped. A horrible thought presented itself to me.

Doctor Brink no doubt combined the practice of alienism with that of spot-cash cures. And this lady was doubtless an "inmate." And——

The voice of the inmate interrupted me. "It's quite all right, really it is. I'm not accusing you of theft or anything else. I only want to get my stockings from this cupboard. Mrs. Gomm, our 'char,' she mixes things up so. And I want a brown pair, because this is my day for being respectable with my aunt at Ealing, and you wear your brown dress and a neat toque for that sort of thing; and where the devil that woman has—oh, here we are. Want darning, of course. Damn!"

Swearing seemed to be a widespread habit in this unusual household. I coughed—the sort of cough you use when children are present and your deaf Uncle David is reviving his recollections of India in the sixties.

"I say," protested my visitor, "you really needn't look so worried. It's all right, really. This is my room, you know; theoretically, you know. Only I always sleep in the bathroom (we've got a bath-room, you know, and there's a lid to it, and I sleep on that), and I always sleep there because it's a long way from Fatty, and I can't hear him raving when the night-bell rings. And Fatty——"

"Pardon me," I cried, "but who is Fatty?"

The lady looked at me a little blankly. "Who is Fatty?" she repeated, but then broke off, a light as of understanding in her eye. "I was forgetting," she said. "Of course, you wouldn't know. Well, it is like this, you see. This house belongs to a man called Brink, who is a doctor and——"

"I know all that," I assured her.

"Oh, you do know all about it, then," quoth she; "I wasn't sure, you know. Most of the strange people that I find in my bedroom if I happen to look in for anything don't know anything at all about us. Fatty finds them—gathers them up, you know—and brings them home and feeds them and converts them to Socialism and puts them to bed, and when they wake up in the morning they have to have it all explained to them. Fatty is Dr. Brink, you know. One always calls him Fatty, because his proper names are Theobald Henry de la Rue, and you simply haven't time in the mumps season. You're a reformer, I suppose? What do you reform?"

"Reform!" I cried, "what do I reform? Why, I don't reform at all. I've never reformed a blue-bottle."

"But surely you're against something or other. You must be against something!"

"Oh, well," I answered, "if it comes to that, I—I——"

"Just so," assented the lady. "Don't go into particulars. They all particularise. I could stand much from you—more than usual, I mean—because you are clean-shaven, and that is such a change from most of the other powerful thinkers whom one finds here in the morning. They are staunch, you know, and sound on the Education Question and all that sort of thing, and they are a useful hobby for Fatty to take up; but they're rather old and solemn, as a rule, you know. And they do go into details! Now you seem rather jolly; and when you've got up and we've been properly introduced and I've boiled your egg, I'll show you my white rats. Do you like white rats?"

"I adore them," said your servant.

"Good. And, I say, I hope you won't mind, but you'll have to toilet yourself in the kitchen sink. Our 'char's' such a rotter, you know, and I see she hasn't filled your jug—she never does—and she doesn't come till ten, and I've got to finish dressing, and Fatty's out on a call, and there's all the breakfast to get; and when you've done your toilet do you mind just putting a match to the gas stove and sticking a kettle on? Thanks awfully." ... My fair guest flung herself upon the door. All of her, save a corner of the stripy petticoat, had disappeared, when I put in the important question.

"I say," I cried, "who are you?"

"Me," cried a voice from behind the door—"me? Oh ... I am James."

III

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

With breakfast came the opportunity of renewing my entente with James. That young lady appeared now fully clothed in the conventional garments of her age, even to a pinafore with seven pockets.

"What do you put in all those pockets?" I inquired, as she tripped in with the bacon.

"Most of them," she answered, "contain white rats.... I thought," she added, eyeing me closely, as I drifted in a thoughtful manner to the far end of the table, "I thought you adored white rats?"

"That is quite so," I responded. "The dear, dumb creatures! I—I idolise them."

"Why do you idolise them?" demanded James, putting on a very subtile smile.

"Because," I answered, "because they—they are so dumb and—and so white."

"Then why do you shudder at them?"

I explained my attitude towards white rats. "It is not fear which makes me seem to shrink," I pointed out, "only a sense of—of—well, you see, the white rats which I have previously adored were confined within a cage, which contained a sort of treadmill, which they worked with their feet, and you watched this talented display from a distance, and wondered if they never grew tired. But——"

"Those wheel-cages," interpolated James, "are the most damnable contrivances which were ever invented. Whenever I see one I buy it and burn it. That is one reason why I happen to have so many rats. I think that the people who make those things ought to be devoured by locusts. I——"

"You also have the spirit of reform, then?" I ventured to suggest.

"Reform!" echoed James, with a bitter laugh. "Because one hates to see things tortured? I call it common decency. All of Fatty's friends have got some wonderful new name for being decent. One of Fatty's most particular friends is a rather awful man named Boag, and he is a public accountant, and he wears spats, and he calls himself a Conative Meliorist; and if you ask him why, he says it is because he believes in making people happy. 'Conative Meliorist'! Think of it! Sounds so expensive, doesn't it? He pronounces his name in two jerks—Bo—ag, and it always reminds me of Asheg, Mesheg, and Abednedgo.... He looks exactly like them, too! 'Conative Meliorist'! It is much easier to call yourself just James."

"Why do you call yourself 'James,' by the way?"

"Let us stick to the point," responded James. "It is so like a man to dodge your arguments when he can't upset them. What was the point?"

"Conative Meliorism," I suggested.

"That was merely a passing reference. There was something else which reminded me of Mr. Boag. Something which reminded me of something which reminded me of something which remind—I remember now. We were talking of white rats. You were pretending not to hate them. You were trying to deceive me. Your pretendings don't take me in the leastest bit, so you may just as well chuck them up. Be honest. Be a man. Stand up like an English gentleman. Say what you feel about them. Do not fear to shock my virgin ears because——"

"How old are you, James?" I hoped that my simple, honest, obvious wonder would disarm the question of its point.

The lady gazed upon me with an air of bland surprise. "That is a question," she answered, with great gravity, "which I never discuss. It isn't fair to Fatty. Do sit down. Was it sugar and no milk, you said; or milk and no sugar? And will you have hysterics if Sunshine joins the circle? He always breakfasts with his mother. Oh, de minna, tinna, tooney Sunshine, den."

Sunshine was a rat—the whitest and roundest and fattest of them all.

* * * * *

I, nevertheless, contrived to breakfast well. Sunshine's mistress was thoughtful enough to curtail the radius of that minna, tinna, tooney animal's accustomed beat: with the result that I was able to keep my seat. And his mistress stayed him with dainties and prattled cheerfully upon a variety of strange subjects. It was no good waiting breakfast for Fatty, she explained, because Fatty's "call" was a "midder."

"And what in heaven's name," I demanded, "may a 'midder' be?"

"That," explained James, "is what Fatty calls an 'obstetric term.' When people have babies, you know. Do you know what 'B.B.A.' means?"

I didn't.

"That's another trade expression. It stands for 'Born Before Arrival,' and it's what you always pray for, because it saves a lot of time, and they have to pay you just the same. Our fee is half a guinea, and you can pay it by instalments if you like. But if it is your first baby we charge a guinea, because your husband is a lot more trouble to us, and he is not always sober. And whatever the fee, we do our very best for you, and pride ourselves on our results; but as we get about seven 'midders' every day, we are not able to make so many compliments as we did in Norfolk.... Fatty calls it his Automatic Delivery System."

The girl, as she spoke, looked very "nice" and English: she was feeding Sunshine from a fork. I began to wonder whether it was actually possible that she did not realise the horrible impropriety of her conversation. As an Englishman, I knew my duty. That duty was to represent to her in suitable terms that her conduct was abandoned and impure. But the religious duty of causing maidens to blush is one which is best performed by the Righteous, who perform it so well and often.... I concealed my horror.

And the maiden prattled on. "Some of them are fearfully grateful. Do you see that old stuffed owl in the dusty case, there? That's a present—to me. It only came yesterday, and it's a token of gratitude from a Jewish lady in the fish trade. This is her sixth, and the first five were all girls. She used to deal with our opposition—Dr. McWhite—but when the fifth female came along they changed over to Fatty, and this stuffed owl is what he calls a tribute to professional ability. And there's Fatty's key in the door. Seize his bacon, will you—it's in the fender."

I was rather annoyed with Dr. Brink for returning just then. I had mapped out a series of leading questions designed to elicit James's age and identity.

But when the little hungry man came in, I felt that these questions were unimportant and could wait. It was interesting enough to help that busy scientist to mustard, and to hear him curse the Liberal Government with his mouth full of bacon, and to watch the quiet motherliness of James.

"Regular multitude in the waiting-room," announced the doctor, as he gulped his coffee. "Got to get back there quick. You'd better pop down with me, youngster, and get a squint at it all."

"You sit on the gas-stove in the kitchen," explained James. "There's a window just above it which gives on to the consulting-room, and it's painted on the kitchen side, and I've scratched a little squint-hole in the paint.... I often go down there when the drunks come in—the funny drunks, I mean. Sometimes they are not funny. And Mr. Boag, the Conative Meliorist, sits there by the hour. He calls it 'supping with misery.'"

"You'll spend the day with us, I suppose?" suggested the little doctor. And, as it was Saturday, and therefore a holiday in my trade, I supposed that I would.

And then they introduced me to the gas-stove.

IV

SIXPENCES

I sat on the gas-stove, with James beside me, and we applied our eyes in turn to the squint-hole and beheld the Doctor earning sixpences.

Item: A young gentleman with the hiccoughs. Was feeling suicidal. How was his appetite? Shocking, shocking! Digestion in good order? On the contrary, it was shocking bad. What sort of nights? Shocking! Spirits low? Shocking low. Did his head ache? Shockingly. Food taste dull? Absolutely shocking. Young gentleman receives some advice on the subject of alcoholic excess and a bottle of water, fortified by harmless colouring matter. Young gentleman departs.

Item: Tired woman with baby in convulsions. Baby's dietary discussed. Woman indignant. "Why," she declares, "'e 'as the very same as us!" Baby dismissed with a powder.

Item: Slow-spoken man with a jellied thumb. "Door jamb," he explains. "Want a stifficut. Works at the Brewery. Want another stifficut for the Insurance. 'Urry up. 'Ow much? Good-day."

Then an old woman came in—a very old woman, with rosy cheeks and a clean apron, and querulous, childish eyes.

"I want some morphium," she says, "to soothe meself down. Not that I got a right to look for much—at my age."

The doctor became jocular. "What!" he cried. "A fine woman like you? Morphia for you? What? With those cheeks? What?"

"I ain't got no happetite," said the old woman. "And there's shooting pains in me 'ead, and I don't sleep proper, and I seems to feel lonesome, and I wants some morphium to soothe meself down with."

"What's your favourite dinner dish?" inquired our inconsequent wag of a doctor.

"I ain't got no favourites," replied the woman. "I'm old, I am; what should I do with favourites at my age? I want some morphium to soothe meself down."

"What is your age—sixty?"

"I shall never see sixty again," said the woman. "Nor I shan't see seventy. Nor eighty. I'm old."

"And you mean to tell me," cried the doctor, with sudden heat, "that you do not care for tripe? Good tripe, mind you—tender tripe, very well boiled, with just a flavouring of onions?"

"And if I did," protested the woman, "who's to cook it for me? There's so many young women to get the favours now I find, and me so old. Can't I have a little morphium, Doctor: the brown mixture, ye know? To soothe meself down with."

"The young ones get the favouring, eh? Do you live with a young woman?"

"I lives with two on 'em—worse luck."

"Daughters?"

"Daughters? Me? No, sir. I'm a maiden, I am.... It's me landlady what I lives with."

"Doesn't she cook for you? I've got some tripe in the kitchen, and I thought—but, of course, if it can't be cooked, why—— What's all this about?"

The rosy-cheeked old maiden was crying, "I'm too old," she sobbed; "it's the young ones gets the favouring."

"Oh," said the doctor, "and so your landlady is unkind?"

"Not unkind, sir," said the woman, gently swallowing the doctor's bait; "she's a good woman, as they go, only I'm growed so old, and a young woman has come into our house, and I'm sorry to say, doctor, as she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. She is a young woman."

"Can't you get some other lodgings?" suggested the doctor. "You oughtn t to be neglected."

"I do not say I ham neglected, Doctor. That would be huntrue. I am not blaming anybody. I honly say I'm old. And this new lodger she's 'leniated my landlady away from me. She's young, you see. Well under seventy, she is."

They're all alike, these minxes," said the doctor, with a wistful smile.

"I got nothing to say agin her, mind you," protested the old woman. "Not agin neether. My landlady, she was very good and kind to me at one time; but now this young one 'ave come, and I ham sorry to say as she 'ave 'leniated my landlady away from me."

"I shouldn't fret about the matter, anyhow," suggested Dr. Brink. "You'll make friends with your landlady soon again; I'm sure you will."

"We was never bad friends," explained the woman. "We're friends to-day, on'y not sich friends, if you understand me. This new lodger, you see, she has 'leniated my landlady away from me. That's what it is. She 'ave leniated her. She's a young woman, you see! ... Will you give me some morphium, Doctor; just to soothe meself down with?"

The maiden got her morphia.

The maiden was succeeded by another woman—a mother. She carried a bundle, partly occupied by a baby. She was a lewd and dirty woman, and engaged my friend in the following dialogue.

FEMALE: I warra soothin' surrup for my baby yere. 'E's fidgety.

DOCTOR: How fidgety?

FEMALE: Well: look at the little blighter. 'E's got the blasted jumps.

DOCTOR: Of course he's got the jumps. He's dying.

FEMALE: Warra mean—dyin'?

DOCTOR: I mean that he will soon be dead.

FEMALE: Whaffor?

DOCTOR: Because he's starving.

FEMALE: Warra mean—starving?

DOCTOR: I mean that he is squirming mad from hunger. Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Warra mean, ye bleatin' image?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ye bleatin' image! 'Oo the 'ell you think you are?

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE (weeping wildly): Me starve my baby? Ow, ow, ow, ow!

DOCTOR: Breast fed, of course?

FEMALE: Ow, ow—why cert'nly 'e's breast fed! 'Ow else d'ye think a pore workin' woman's goin' ter manage? And 'im not five months old. And one of yere own deliveries. Cert'nly e's breast fed.

DOCTOR: That's the trouble, you see. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout. He's starving, I tell you.

FEMALE: And I tell ye it's a dirty lie. I'm for ever feedin' 'im. 'E's for ever worryin'. Sich a happetite this little beggar's got. Warra mean, me starve 'im? Warra mean, yere gin and beer? I suckle the little dear meself.

DOCTOR: And what do you feed yourself on?

FEMALE: That's my business, ain't it?

DOCTOR: It's my business, too. If you want that baby to live, you'd best look sharp and feed him. Get sober. I can't cure the baby. The only person who can cure him is yourself. And to do that you must leave off getting drunk. You must eat some decent food. You're living on alcohol at present. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout.

FEMALE: S'elp me Gawd, Doctor—s'elp me Gawd, young man, if I die this minute—s'elp me Gawd I ain't 'ad only two 'arf-pints since yisterday. I take them a-purpose for the boy's own sake, young man. 'E don't seem to fancy it, some'ow, unless I 'as me drop o' stout. See what I mean, Doctor? I takes what I do for the baby's own sake: 'e will 'ave it, bless 'is little 'eart.

V

THE HYPOCRITES

During a lull in the sixpenny battle Dr. Brink held parley with me, standing on the seat of his official chair and peering through the top of his consulting-room window. "Are you comfortable on that gas-stove?" inquired the learned doctor.

"The gas-stove," I said, "is very well; but—er—comfort, you know, is not exactly the word. It—it—I say, you know, that woman with the dying baby was rather quaint."

"This," said the doctor, "is a quaint sort of gas-stove. We often roast chaps on it. Do you like beer?"

"Not much," I answered, "but my brother plays the flute."

"Because," pursued my host, ignoring this effort at repartee, "my consultations are nearly over for this morning, and then I am going my round, and that is a short one, and I shall be back here by one o'clock, and after that I propose to brew some beer. Would you like to help me?"

The proposition was not without a certain suddenness, but I was getting used to this household, and did not betray my surprise. Also, I accepted the invitation.

"Righto! Come about yourself? How's your appetite?" said the doctor, in one breath, as he disappeared from the window and readdressed himself to business.

* * * * *

And in the afternoon we duly did this brewing.

"One brews in Baffin's studio," explained the doctor, with a slight yawn, as he led me through the kitchen door into his little yard, all bright with tulips. "Baffin's studio is really our washhouse, you know."

"And who is Baffin?" I demanded.

"One of the Leicestershire Baffins," replied the doctor gravely. "His mother was a Pillbrook. His uncle——"

I begged the doctor to restrain his gift of humour. "Where is Baffin? What is he?" I demanded again.

"Oh," said the doctor, "if you are really commonplace enough to be interested in a man himself when you ask, "who he is," I will expound this Baffin to you. He has red hair and freckles, and he is one of the Leicestershire Baffins, and he hates the Leicestershire Baffins, and he is a youth of great talents, who is supposed to live here, but at present he is reforming the Royal Academy, and reviving poster art in England. And he never puts anything where he will find it again, or shuts a drawer or folds his clothes. He is a genius. And—— Look out, I say, that's Baffin's bag."

It was Baffin's bag, and it assisted your servant in the performance of a complicated somersault. Baffin had left it on his doorstep.

Baffin's doorstep led into quite the wildest washhouse which I have ever viewed. Baffin's bed, consisting of three brown blankets strewn oddly upon a damaged ottoman, occupied most of the foreground, and behind this object lay, in some confusion, waistcoats, and easels, and broken chairs, and bas-reliefs, and unclean collars, and portfolios, and fencing sticks, and a rusty helm and vizor out of Wardour Street. And the walls were covered with crayon drawings and printed posters, all of them attached to the plaster by means of one corner and a pin, and all of them being curled at the edges and tanned with exposure. It was noticeable, also, that a bust of the Blessed Virgin, after Cinquevalli, was situated within the font or cavity of the copper. We removed this object in order to make room for the beer.

I observed also that Mr. Baffin's studio was beautified by one mural design of a permanent nature. This consisted of a sum in compound arithmetic, performed by means of charcoal. I studied this inscription with interest. There was

A fairly obvious, if unconventional, piece of mathematical deduction. We were then faced with a new problem, somewhat more mysterious in its workings. Thus:—

I must own to being strangely touched by this pathetic effort on the part of Baffin to solve the mysteries of an alien art. I also reflected that the result of his calculations, though wayward and inscrutable in itself, was probably touched with a profound and poignant importance to Baffin. It represented cigarettes and dinners—£1 12s. 7d. worth, more or less. A fellow-feeling made me fear it must be less. There was a hurried, insignificant, shamefaced look about the figures wherewith Baffin had recorded his results. They indubitably pointed to a debit balance.

Presently Mr. Baffin himself strolled in, and we were presented to each other, and he helped us boil the beer. He helped us in intention rather than effect, for Mr. Baffin possessed a thoughtful, halting, introspective mind, and, as Dr. Brink had observed, he did not put things where they could be found again. Also, he was rather wrapped up in me. "I say, you know," he had observed, "I wish you would sit for me. You would make a splendid model for my oyster seller. I am doing the New Cut by night, you know."

"Are you in love?" demanded Mr. Baffin, a little later. I said, "Of course." "Will you bring her round, then?" continued Mr. Baffin. "And to what end?" I said. "I am collecting lovers," explained this talented and candid youth. "I want that rapt look. Paid models are no use at all, you know. Amateurs aren't much better, of course, because they all have prejudices against yearning in public. But I am hoping to find the exception in time, and you have a natural sort of expression—rather—and so I thought—I give you tea, you know, and drinks when there are any. All you have to do is to sit on the throne and embrace. I hope she's dark. Next Tuesday would be a good day."

I promised Mr. Baffin that I would submit his proposition to all the ladies with whom I happened to be in love.

And then the liquid in the copper arrived at a perfect temperature and we became all silent in the pursuit of brewing. And James came in to help us, observing that the attractions of brewing transcended those of her aunt at Ealing, and that she had postponed her visit to that respectable lady. And some of the doctor's friends looked in, including Mr. Pudsey, the lyric poet, and Boag (conative meliorist), who invited me to dine with him, and Jenny Brown, the painter, and Miss Blick, of the Women's Social and Political Union, and Mr. Webb, the local curate, who explained to me, with an air of bold originality, that Christianity and Socialism had points in common. And we partook of tea from Breton mugs, and were secretly amused at each other. And in the midst of it all a gas engine arrived at the surgery door, and said "Honk! Honk!" And the doctor rushed out and came back looking sad.

"It is Lady Budge, the new member's wife," he said with dolour; "and she has come in her motor to discuss the poor. James, old girl, I am awfully sorry, but you have got to be respectable. Her ladyship is waiting upstairs now."

A period of wild excitement followed, while we all helped James to comb her hair and climb into the speckled pinafore of a blameless life. "I will do my best," said James; "but I am sure I shall forget and call you 'Fatty.' Is it father or papa to-day?"

"Her ladyship," responded the doctor, "is, I think, the kind of ladyship who would prefer papa. Let her do all the good she wants to. Mention that we've got a curate here. Webb and I will come up in a little while and collect the cheque. Don't harrow her. She's the kind of ladyship who likes to do business with respectable poverty."

When, a little later, we went upstairs, James was sedately sipping more tea from a cup. And her ladyship was talking, and James was viewing her with eyes of innocence and wonder. "I quite agree with you," said James, "that alpaca is the most sensible thing for people of that class."

Baffin was dragged in, and the doctor loudly proclaimed him as being of the Leicestershire Baffins, and her ladyship suddenly looked interested and human.

"You are an artist?" she said. "How very charming!"

Baffin, who had done very well up to then, became suddenly ponderful again. "I say," he blurted forth, at last, "couldn't I persuade you to sit for me some time? You are the very thing I have been looking out for. For my angel's back, you know."

VI

CONATUS

I accepted Mr. Boag's invitation and dined with him—at the National Liberal Club. They wine you at this place in a manner which is singularly perfect. I cannot, at this distance of time, state exactly what topics formed the subject of Mr. Boag's improving conversation; but I can say that, regarded from the standpoint of Meliorism, his dinner was an emphatic success. And when it was quite over I found myself upon the Thames Embankment smiling cheerfully, as was becoming to the happy circumstance of my conversion to Mr. Boag's cheerful doctrines.

And thus it was that I came to take part, unofficially, at another dinner party; a repast à deux, with epigrams, and incident, all in the most approved style of romance. The tête-à-tête is consecrated to literature by a thousand charming precedents. I shall certainly offer no apology for submitting this one to your indulgent consideration.

They were dining off alabaster—or was it granite?—at the foot of Cleopatra's Needle; and I remarked particularly the singular blueness of Strephon's fingers. The glorious revelation, recently vouchsafed to me, of Conative truths, had so warmed my heart, had set up such a tingling within my veins (which were themselves protected from chill by several layers of wool and cambric) that the few degrees of frost prevailing at the moment had not yet become evident to my senses. Strephon, of course, was in another case, being appropriately clad in garments partaking of the nature of gossamer. And he, besides, had not been privileged to receive the truths of Meliorism. Wherefore, he must blow upon his nail, and pinch his scrubby cheek, and utter blasphemies, crying, "Christ, mate, but this wind ain't 'arf a nipper."

And she (the Chlöe of this story: the one whom he addressed as "mate") made answer thus: "Then do as I tell you, an' drink that up!"

"But 'ere, 'old 'ard!" cried Strephon, as she poked a little bottle at his lips—"that's your share, ain't it?"

"Not be rights," said the woman, blushing a little—or seeming to blush; for she was a battered, sodden thing, and her cheek had lost its quickness. "It ain't my share, be rights. I—I 'ad a sip at yourn. Besides, I've lorst me liking fur that Irish stuff. Give me Scotch!"

"This is Scotch, ain't it?" said the man.

"It is, bad luck to it," replied the woman quickly. "I've lost me likin' fur it, I tell you. Give me Irish!"

"Oh!" said the man, and he swallowed her share.

He pocketed the empty bottle with a little shiver of contentment. The woman shivered also, and plucked at an imaginary shawl. "Now then, boy," she cried, with sudden cheerfulness; "wake up, you ain't 'arf a eater. Why don't ye punch into that other 'am bone."

"So I shall," responded Boy, with a full mouth, "when I done this."

"Righto, dearie," said the woman quietly, with a sideways look at the ham bone and another little shiver. Then she drew closer to her companion and looked at him silently, with pity in her awful eyes. "It's a funny thing about you," she said at last; "you to be on the rocks at your age—a boy like you!"

"I'm rather independent in me nature," explained the "Boy." "I've stood fur me rights and suffered by it. 'Ad some good jobs in me time. 'Ad some money too. I was a bit lucky over cards. Retired for a year an' done it in. Ain't 'ad no luck since."

"Funny, ain't it," said the woman, still with that strange softness in her shameful eyes. "Funny, ain't it," she repeated: "a boy like you."

"Not so much o' yere 'Boy,'" protested Strephon; "I'm twenty-four."

"Ha!" cried the woman, crouching closer, "what price yere 'umble then? I'm turned forty-four."

Strephon looked lazily at her, munching his ham bone steadily. She made a queer figure, strange to see beside that world-old monument, with her swollen, bloodless face, and button nose, and greedy eyes, and ravelled, rusty hair, the colour of an old dog-fox's pelt. And that which was upon her head, a time-worn sailor-hat, set at a ridiculous angle, increased the queerness of her. "What price yere 'umble?" she cried again, with a shrill little creak of laughter; "turned forty-four, I am."

"Yus," said Strephon simply, "and you look it!"

He continued to munch at his ham bone, and she continued to leer at him, showing neither anger nor surprise. But the flat smile on her face grew gradually flatter, and again she shivered, plucking at the shawl which was not there.

Suddenly the man looked up from his ham bone and spoke to her. "'Ow much did 'e give you for it?" said he.

The woman uttered a sequence of scalding oaths.

"The stingy swine," cried she, "'e give me a tanner; that's what 'e give me—a lousy tanner. See if I don't jolly well pop back there and 'ave a shawl's worf out of 'is stinkin' till—the stingy Jew."

"What!" said the man, evincing a sort of interest. "Are you in that line, then? Tills and ceterer?"

"I'm in any blessed line, I am," said the woman, "s' long as there's the price of a fag in it. Never 'eard o' Nottingham Kate, I suppose? That's me. I was well known in me time. 'Twas I what done that drugging affair at Weedon, when we put them orficers through it. They made a lot of that job at the time. I done five year for that."

"Well," commented Strephon, still gnawing patiently at his bone, "it ain't much to yere credit. I'm on the straight ticket meself. Per'aps if I'd knowed the sort of character you—but there: you ain't so bad as some on 'em. Harlot, or thief, or what not, you've treated me quite fair.... Gurrr! ... Christ, but it's cold!"

"Chronic!" said the woman, pressing her senseless fingers to her neck, in the way which women have.

"That 'am," reflected Strephon, "just sooted me all right. Wish I 'ad a fag now."

Without a word, the woman struggled to her feet, and descended the steps of the pedestal, half walking, half crawling, like a child. She peered into the darkness, and must have beheld a figure there; for she at once came forward, with stiff, uncertain steps, and having spoken to him, returned to her pedestal the possessor of all his cigarettes.

"Strike me now," cried Strephon, beholding her treasure with incredulous eyes; "you are a deep one. You don't 'arf know the ropes. Take one yerself, won't ye?"

Chlöe took a cigarette and lighted it; but Strephon, after fumbling hopelessly with a matchbox, threw the thing away from him in petulant despair. "See here," cried he. "Look at them things, there! Them's my 'ands; was once. Look at 'em. Gawd 'elp me, look at 'em. I can't bend 'em; I can't move 'em; Gawd 'elp me, I can't ser much as lift 'em. I——"

Chide, taking the cigarette from her lips, placed it between his, which silenced them. And then she took his hands, and with a little laugh—the same old creak of a laugh—she widened the gaping juncture of her bodice, and placed his senseless hands within it, where they lay warm beside her bosom. The sudden contact of the ice-cold substance forced a little shriek from her.

"That's a good idea, mate, that is," declared her Strephon. "'Ope you won't catch cold?"

"Co-old?" cried the woman, with a little tremor. "Co-ld be damned. Us women is different from you blo-o-kes. We kin sta-and more cold. We got more warmth be na-ature."

"I see," said Strephon, and he blew forth a fat, contented cloud of cigarette smoke.

There was a silence, disturbed by the chattering of the woman's teeth. Then, at last, with a sudden catching of the breath, she spoke again—

"'Ere," she said, "'ere"—and she uttered the familiar creak—"I'm doin' this because I like you. Wonder if you like me?"

"Ho," reflected Strephon, "you're all right—considering what you are."

VII

ON THE PROPERTIES OF WATER

"Doctor ... can you tell me if water is a safe thing for anybody to drink?"

She was a wizened, alert little woman, having bright eyes and an eager face. The back of the doctor's neck, which I spied through my peephole, grew red under pressure of the secret emotions occasioned by this question.

"As to that," replied the doctor, "I—ahem—er—I—well, in fact—er—ahem—you see, er—Mrs.—Mrs.——"

"Mrs. Skelp, sir," interpolated the caller. "Mrs. Skelp, of Peacock Street. You must remember me, sir. I've 'ad you in for me last three."

"Why, of course, I remember you, Mrs. Skelp," responded the shameless physician; "your name had slipped my memory. And how are they all doing?"

"Nicely, thank you, sir," said Mrs. Skelp. "Excepting," she added, as if with a sudden afterthought—"the pore little thing what died. Although I'm sure, doctor—and many's the time I said the same to Skelp—I'm sure you done your best. Though 'ow you made seven visits of it when the child was on'y ill five days is a thing I never could—but, there, let bygones be bygones. About this water now. You think that water's a safe sort of thing for anybody to drink, Doctor?"

"It's—ahem—it's a—er—a natural sort of drink, you know," suggested the doctor.

"Why, cert'nly, Doctor," admitted Mrs. Skelp. "On'y ... Well, so far as that goes, you could say the same of milk."

"You could," assented Dr. Brink.

"And yet," pursued his patient, "it is well known to all of us what milk will do for the system. Look 'ow it puffs you out. Look at that baby of mine, the pore little thing what died. You did your best, Doctor, we all know, but we've often thought since as milk was at the bottom of it. It doesn't do for the likes of us to set ourselves up against the doctor, but you'll remember yerself that I had my suspicions about you ordering so much milk. 'What I think she wants,' I said, is one of your biggest bottles of good dark red, and—— But there, let bygones be bygones. What I really come 'ere for is about this water question. I says to mine last night, I says—'e's a drayman, you know, Doctor.'"

The Doctor nodded.

"Well," suggested Mrs. Skelp, "you know what draymen are. Water's no drink for a drayman, Doctor."

"I—I suppose not," ventured the doctor.

"And mine, 'e's a 'eavy, full-bodied build o' man. And so I says to 'im—but what's the good o' sayin' anythink to 'im. The long and the short o' it is, Doctor, as 'e's took to the water 'abit.

"I meantosay," continued Mrs. Skelp, having marked the doctor's grin, "I meantosay as 'e's sworn off 'is licker.

"'E's a great reader is mine, you see. 'E sets up in bed for hours o' a Sunday morning and gets through as much as three-pennyworth o' papers at a setting. Not that I 'olds with so much readin', mind you. 'Moody boys an' readin' gals,' we used to say—well, you know the rest, Doctor. It's a thankless 'abit.

"But, at the same time, mind you, I believe in the notion that Sunday is a day of rest. A man's 'ouse is 'is own of a Sunday, I always say. And so I ain't never raised no objections to mine amusin' 'isself; and I can't say that no 'arm 'as ever come of my good nature. Not till now. But now we see the fruits of it.

"You see, Doctor, 'e's bin reading up the subject o' his vitals. And the long and short of it is as 'e's took to what 'e calls 'is nature treatment. Not a tea-cup full o' beer will 'e 'ave inside the 'ouse, Doctor. Not a spoonful. It's water—water, always water. That an' cocoa. Fancy a drayman drinking cocoa, Doctor!"

"Cocoa is a very wholesome drink," asserted the doctor.

"For supper—yes," assented Mrs. Skelp. "I agree with you there, Doctor. But 'ooever 'eard of cocoa for breakfast and water for dinner and water for tea? And not a drop of beer from one week's end to the other? Fancy a drayman without 'is beer, Doctor!"

"He is probably much better without it," suggested Dr. Brink.

"Better without it?" echoed the visitor. "Without beer? A drayman? Workin' ten an' twelve hours on the stretch? You live with 'im, Doctor, and see if 'e's better without it ... Not that I wish you no 'arm."

"And what," said the doctor, looking earnestly at his watch, "and—er—what——"

"Well, Doctor," interpolated Mrs. Skelp, "I really come to see if you could give me a stifficut. We must do something-."

"A certificate of what?" demanded the doctor.

"To say 'e needs it—fur the good o' 'is 'ealth, you know. We can never go on like this. A little stifficut, Doctor, to say 'e needs it."

"Needs what?" exclaimed the doctor, yawning wearily.

"The beer," responded Mrs. Skelp. "This water will be the ruin of 'im, Doctor, and me, too. 'E gets so down'earted, Doctor, so solemn-minded, so short-spoken."

"I have already told you, Mrs. Skelp"—the Doctor put on his heaviest consulting-room manner—"I have already told you that your husband is probably better off without the beer. How, then, can you expect me—especially since I haven't seen him—to give you the certificate which you ask for? And what difference would it make if I did?"

"'E wouldn't go against the doctor's orders, sir. Skelp is not that sort of man. 'E knows 'is place, sir. I on'y got to show him a brief from you, Doctor, to say that what he wants is so many pints to nourish 'is system, and there would be a end to all this nonsense. A drayman must 'ave beer, Doctor."

"A drayman must have nothing of the sort, Mrs. Skelp. What a drayman must have is plenty of rump steak and jam roll and a quiet life and a jolly time. Why do you want him to have this beer? Are you any better off when he does have it? The more he spends on beer the less there is for the home, you know."

"Mine ain't that sort," asserted Mrs. Skelp, with a touch of asperity in her tone: "I keep Skelp's money. What he wants—is beer. The man's got that down-'earted 'e isn't fit to live with. A drayman must 'ave beer."

Dr. Brink inspected his watch again. "Well, Mrs. Skelp," he said, "you've had more than your share of my time. Send him round to-morrow evening, and I'll tell you what I think about it. Good-night."

"My own idea, Doctor," said Mrs. Skelp, as she made her exit, "is a pint an' a 'arf—let us say two pints—of stout and bitter. But I leave the particklers to you, sir."

When she had really gone the doctor saw some other patients—droves of them. And the last of the drove was a large red man, who had called in to discuss his "constitootion."

"It's run down, Doctor," he explained. "That's what it is. Me constitootion is run down. Whenever I draws a slow, long breath, it is the same as if there was snakes and scorpions inside me. Very painful it is."

"Then take a quick, short breath," suggested Dr. Brink.

The patient ignored this obvious response. He did not pay his sixpence to be treated to the obvious. "Also," he continued, "it 'urts me when I whistle."

"Then don't whistle," said the doctor.

"The long and the short of it is," pursued the patient, again ignoring the voice of science, "that my constitootion is thoroughly run down.... I ... I was wondering, Doctor.... Can you tell me if water is a safe thing for anybody to drink?"

The Doctor started. "Water is Nature's beverage," he observed.

"But don't you think, Doctor," suggested the invalid, "that when a man 'as got 'is constitootion into a thoroughly onnatural state, the same as what mine is, that a pint or so of onnatural licker——"

"Oh ... a pint or so ... yes," put in the doctor.

"I bin drinking a lot o' water lately," continued the patient. "I thought I would give it a trial, Doctor, being Nature's beverage and what not, and so highly spoke of in the papers. But I come to the conclusion, Doctor, as it don't get on wiv my constitootion. I got a very peculiar constitootion, Doctor, and it is very much run down. Whenever I turn me eyes up, Doctor, a 'orrible sickly feeling comes over me."

"Turn 'em down then," said the doctor.

"You don't approve of all this water, then?" inquired the patient. "You think, per'aps, a pint or two of ale——"

"A pint or two of ale? Oh, certainly."

"Or stout, Doctor? Say stout and bitter. A couple o' pints o' stout and bitter, Doctor; what? To brace up me constitootion like. What?"

"Stout and bitter," pronounced the doctor, "has, in certain circumstances, a high tonic value."

"Thank you, Doctor. Would you be kind enough to put it in writin', Doctor? I'm a family man, ye see, and seein' as I shall be takin' this tonic for the good o' my constitootion, I thought per'aps—you see my meanin', Doctor?"

"Quite," said the doctor, reaching out for a half-sheet of notepaper. "Your name and address?"

"Skelp," responded the patient. "Samuel Skelp, of Peacock Street. My missus is one o' your oldest customers."

VIII

THE WAY OF THE EAST

We had eaten a belated supper and drunk of a belated cup, and the doctor, yawning cheerfully, had doffed the vestments of respectability, when there came a ring upon the night-bell. The doctor's comment on this happening is of no historical importance. It possessed but a topical interest. Myself, I stumbled down the darkling stairs, and, upon opening the street door, was confronted by a respectfully intoxicated giant, who gave the name of Potter. "Potter, of Mulberry Street," he added, as a more explicit afterthought. He demanded Dr. Brink, explaining the urgent requirements of Mrs. Potter.

"Have you your card?" I inquired in the cold, commercial tone which this occasion warranted.

Mr. Potter removed his cap—a peaked object, of nautical aspect—and from the lining of this he extracted a square of pink pasteboard. This voucher represented at once a receipt and a warranty, being in the first sense an acknowledgment of the sum of ten shillings and sixpence, paid to Dr. Brink in anticipation of certain services, and recording, secondly, a promise from the doctor duly and solemnly to render and perform those services. "And beggin' yere pardon, young man," said Mr. Potter, in a voice of gloom, "I was to tell you from me aunt that the pains is comin' on a treat."

I had scarcely conveyed this joyful intelligence to Dr. Brink, ere that gentleman announced himself as being ready to embark upon the enterprise demanded of him, having clad himself in a fanciful costume consisting of unlaced boots, slack trousers, a pyjama jacket, an overcoat, and the inevitable top hat. He cheerfully accepted my offer to bear him company upon his journey through the night-bound alleyways, and together we sallied forth.

But when we came to the first dim street lamp a sudden monstrous shape appeared within the circle of its radiance, and fawned upon us silently. I wondered, not too hopefully, whether the things which rattled within the doctor's bag were of sound and sterling substance. For we were not regularly armed, and this monster—but he spoke, and thereby set my doubts at rest.

"It is only Potter," murmured the monster, with an apologetic shuffle. "There's some funny birds as stands abaht the corners yere be night, and Mulberry Street is rather a confusin' street to come at, and I thought per'aps as you would be alone, Doctor, and so I took the liberty. It is a cold night for the time o' the year: what? I was to tell you, Doctor, that the pains is comin' on most beautiful."

Mr. Potter committed other information to our confidence. He was a stevedore, he said; and he described the trials of that calling.

"It is a 'ard life, a stevedore, what with the 'eat and 'urry and all. Me and my mates, we shifted two 'underd an' twenty tons o' sugar this very day. But I'm 'oping for a wink o' sleep to-night. What with the pains so good and all. I could do with some sleep. Not that I wish the pore woman no 'arm. She bin a decent wife to me. But I seems to want some sleep. We shifted two 'underd an' twenty tons o' sugar to-day, me an' my mates. I see you brought your tool kit, Doctor. I find it cold for the time o' the year. Christ, but I do feel sleepy."

"I think that I can promise you a wink or two," replied the doctor cheerfully. "You'll be in bed and asleep before two o'clock."

"Much obliged to you, Doctor, I'm sure, Doctor," said the stevedore gratefully. "Me aunt is certainly of opinion that the pains look very promising. I could do wiv a few hours' sleep. Bin shifting sugar all the day. Two 'underd and twenty ton we moved, and there's as much standin' by what I got to punch into termorrow. I'm 'opin' fur a gel."

We came to Mulberry Street, wherein the residence of Mr. Potter could be immediately detected, by reason of the fact that its door stood open—a certain signal in this land of an expected visit from the doctor. We entered the open doorway, and were greeted cheerfully by auntie—an old, untidy, work-stained woman, very drunk.

The stevedore conducted me into a dishevelled kitchen, musty and cramped and cobwebby. He accepted a cigarette, and spat into the fire, and looked at me stupidly. "Two 'underd an' twenty ton!" he exclaimed. "Don't I deserve some blessed sleep?" And there came from some adjacent place an answering moan.

I looked through the door of the kitchen and into the grimy little passage beyond it, wherein an open door gave access to another room. The doctor was in this room, and auntie, and also, I supposed, the stevedore's wife. There came from this apartment certain sounds as of joy and suffering commingled. It is but fair to state that most of the joyful sounds appeared to be uttered by auntie. Auntie had chased away dull care.

It was, indeed, a perfectly refulgent auntie who subsequently lolloped in upon us, carrying a bundle. "'Ere y' are, ole glum-face," chirruped auntie; "take young Joe. An' mind as 'e don't 'oller. Where you put that jug?"

Mr. Potter seized the bundle, and, loosening its folds, exposed a rather maculate small boy, having the paternal cast of feature.

"Look at 'is chest," observed the father simply. "This is ye're sort for punchin' into sugar. Auntie, where's the other one?"

"Alf," responded auntie, "is all right where 'e is. Alfie's old enough to be'ave 'isself. Mind young Joe don't 'oller. Where you put that jug?"

Joe's reply was drowned by a pitiful cry which came from the other room. But auntie found the jug all right. "'Ere's to a gel, ole dear!" quoth auntie. But ... there came that cry again.... At which the old woman regretfully parted from us and the jug and returned to her pious duty of hindering Dr. Brink.

And Mr. Potter once more directed my attention to the physical perfections of his offspring. "I'm proud o' this bloke," he said. "My on'y longin' is to see 'im grow up straight and punch the coal abaht. I do not grudge 'im nuthink. Y' oughter see 'im of a Sunday: 'e ain't 'arf a nib o' Sundays. Velvets and all, ye know. I 'ope the Doctor 'll look sharp. I got a 'eavy day termorrer. My missus is a decent woman, and I don't wish 'er no 'arm; but Gawd knows as I want some sleep be this time. 'Ere's Fred."

Fred was a listless youth, kin to the stevedore. And he came in tired and pale, having "done a whack o' overtime at the pickle works." And he said no word to anybody, but set a saucepan on the sullen fire and sat beside it, stupidly, waiting for an egg to boil. "She don't 'arf sing about it." "What?" demanded the husband, almost savagely. "Ah!" responded Fred.

Then there rang out another sound—the voice of auntie, raised in raucous laughter. "My Gawd!" she cried, "'ow's that for a beauty?"

Mr. Potter shook the drowsy, silent child upon his knee. "Cheer up, Joe," he cried; "you're cut out now, me lad. You ain't the baby any more. D'jeer? Then gimme a bleedin' kiss."

Auntie appeared for a moment in the doorway. "Boy," said she.

Mr. Potter's joy was, for a moment, modified by this announcement. "It was a gel I wished for," he said. "It was a gel we wanted." He rubbed his chin upon young Joseph's yellow head.

"But," he continued, beholding suddenly a pleasant truth, "we shall get some blessed sleep at ennyrate.... Ain't it time that little beggar started in to cry?"

But the boy Fred, to whom Mr. Potter presumably addressed himself, offered no reply. He was engaged in boiling his egg.

"I should like to 'ear the beggar cry, though," said Mr. Potter wistfully, after a pause. He rubbed his chin on Joseph's head again. The boy Fred stirred his saucepan. "Funny, ain't it," mused the stevedore, "that the little chap don't 'oller?" But as he spoke, the little chap responded. "That's done it," cried the stevedore, and rubbed his chin on Joseph's head.

And then I clearly heard the voice of auntie. "That young man what's with you, Doctor, is 'e a doctor, too?"

"Not exactly a doctor," responded Brink; "but he knows quite as much about medicine as any doctor."

"Because," pursued auntie, "the young man might like to step in and see this baby. It's the biggest baby ever I see."

"So it is," assented the doctor. "So he would."

He thought, God help him, that it would please me to see inside that room.

And so he called to me, and I stepped forward and found myself in front of a reality. You know the thing, of course: a poor, white woman in a poor, white bed. And—— But need I describe it? You know it all, don't you?

You do not know it.

I know it—now. I know what is the way of the East. I will tell you what I saw.

I saw a bare brown mattress, and on it lay a moaning woman, fully dressed: entirely dressed. And at her head there lay the new-born babe, and at the baby's head another child—a child of six. And when I entered in this child made speech. "Auntie's gointer dress him soon," he said.

"This, my pure young friend," said Doctor Brink, "is a typical mise en scène. Every detail is correct."

"Correct?" squawked the triumphant auntie. "It's a double-adjectived marvel ... You're a genelman, Doctor!"

I ran away from this sick-room. I ran out into the rain.... I observed, as I ran past him, that the boy Frederick had boiled his egg and was eating it.

IX

THE 'POTHECARY

The curious establishment of Dr. Brink contained one curiosity which I have not yet described to you. His name was Gilkes—Samuel de Quincey Gilkes—and he was poor and unwashed, and angular and polite, and full of wonder.

He was Dr. Brink's dispenser, or, as the natives preferred to have it, the 'Pothecary.

Gilkes was a tall man, especially for a 'Pothecary, the races of 'Pothecaries being commonly little and round and complacent. But Gilkes was a giant of his species; albeit, he was timid and obliging, and carried his stature with an air of not wishing to create comment. He had long brown hair and a vague mouth, and very lean hands, with which he stroked the furniture when he spoke to you. His eyes were blue, but of an exceptional paleness, and they were restless, seeking eyes, which looked beyond you, as if they saw the sea with ships upon it. I think that Mr. Gilkes deserves a little paper to himself.

I should have told you that he was not a very young man, having reached, perhaps, his fortieth year. But his heart was filled with a serene and youthful hope; for he cherished the belief that he would one day pass his final examination in surgery and medicine, and would take his degree and figure upon the rolls as a fully licenced practitioner. In the meantime he was humble.

I have often listened to his sorrowful reproaches when Dr. Brink, weary of the delays occasioned by his apothecary's interest in distant ships, would hurl himself into the little dispensary and concoct the bottles of light brown with his own hand.

"You shouldn't, sir," the 'Pothecary would say; "you shouldn't. You mustn't. It isn't fitting, sir. It isn't proper. It isn't the thing. I know I'm remiss. I know I'm slow. You ought to discharge me. You ought to discharge me. I must pass my final. I certainly must. You oughtn't to do it. Two grains calomel. Two grains calomel. I certainly must. Certainly. Certainly." And then, his utterance growing fainter and finally ceasing, the 'Pothecary would rest his chin upon a hand and look out once again upon the ships at sea, and somebody would go without his calomel.

Mr. Gilkes had also the habit of rising late—a detestable habit. And it therefore happened that the doctor's waiting-room would be filled with impatient women before his dispenser arrived to make up the "light browns" and "dark reds," upon which they lavished so much faith.

But when the 'Pothecary did arrive there was always an apology upon his lips—the same apology every time. "I'm late again, sir; late again. Forty minutes late. I'm awful, sir; awful. You will have to discharge me. I'm always late. I'm awful. It won't do. It isn't fair. I shall have to go. I must pass my final. Sach. Ust. For Mr. Jenner, sir? Yes, sir. Sach. Ust. Sach. Ust. I'm awful; awful."

The doctor and James invariably observed the form of asking him up to tea. But with equal regularity he would reply with a formula of plaintive, almost passionate protest. "Impossible, sir. Not for a minute. You mustn't. You can't. I'm not worth it, sir. It isn't usual, sir. It isn't the thing. When I've passed my final, sir—perhaps then. Perhaps then. I will pass my final, sir. I must."

And Mr. Gilkes would sight a sail and watch it eagerly with a little fluttering smile.

He always dressed himself in shabby black. This emphasised his stature and the exceeding leanness of him. It also served to disguise the unnatural colour of his linen, He did not smoke, and they naturally say that he drank. But I never saw him drunk. He would sometimes look out upon his ship with the gaze of one who is intoxicated with the splendour of his visions. But this is not the same as being drunk.

Wilfered, his successor in the post of 'Pothecary (for you will understand that Mr. Gilkes became impossible), has placed on record that "Gilkes fair give you the 'errors, a-talkin' to 'isself the livelong day and strokin' the bottles and seein' snakes." But Wilfered is young and strenuous, and efficient. His heart is in his work. He adds the water to the sugar with extreme exactitude, and, not being versed in the language of pharmacy, he is convinced that not merely the reputation of Dr. Brink, but the very lives of all his patients are bound up in the exact and scrupulous decoction of the liquids committed to his care. But he does not interest himself in distant ships.

For myself, I am sorry that Mr. Gilkes became impossible. I like dumb animals.

I shall always remember the evening when, coming unexpectedly to the house, I saw him sitting by a window with the light from the setting sun upon his face and shabby coat. He was talking to James. And James has the knack of making people talk much.

"He writes, does he?" said the 'Pothecary. (I think that the question must have applied to your servant.) "He would. Of course he would. Quite naturally. Just so. Of course. Some people can write. They have the trick. Some people can do anything. Anything. I must pass my final. They thought I was going to be a writer myself once. To write poetry, I suppose. 'He's half a poet,' they use to say, 'half a poet.'

"But I wasn't worth the compliment. I couldn't find the rhymes, you know. I could see it all—sometimes, you know; but I couldn't find the rhymes. Once I nearly reached it, but only once—only nearly. You see, I—I haven't even passed my final. Not yet. But I will. I must. I nearly did it last time—nearly. Nearly."

His voice dropped low; so low that you could hardly hear it. And he looked out to sea again; but not with gladness. I think he saw some sort of hulk or derelict.

X

THE MOTHER'S TRADE UNION

"My motter," said 'Ost 'Uggins decisively, "is 'Live an' let live.' We won't deny but what the young woman 'as acted wrongful. She 'as broke an important commandment, as we all know, besides puttin' my 'ole establishment to expense and inconvenience. Besides upsettin' my good lady. Besides disgracin' 'er fambily.

"But at the same time I can't forget that my mother's father was 'isself a fondling. And we live in a Keristian age. And the one as is most to blame is the man, 'ooever 'e may be, the ugly 'ound. What'll you take, Doctor?"

"Ginger b——," began the doctor, having knowledge of the Mile End drink traffic. But he checked himself, yielding, I suppose, to the reflection that duty called for a more enthusiastic response to 'Ost 'Uggins's hospitality.

"I will have a glass of—of whatever you drink yourself," said the doctor.

'Ost 'Uggins favoured us with a heavy wink. His face and figure as he stood there behind the marble counter of his "saloon compartment" suggested coarseness and obesity and vulgarity and opulence and ignorance, and—and manhood.

They used to say that pigs could fly,

Oh, aye, oh!

They used to say that pigs could fly

A hundred years ago.

It is certain that this pig could fly. For "Live and let live" was his motto. The pig is an animal which is held in unwarrantable disdain by pious men.

Having concluded the wink, 'Ost 'Uggins inserted a ponderous hand into a nook concealed by a framed portrait of himself—it represented Mr. Huggins in the costume of an Arch Grand something or other of the Ancient and Vociferous Order of Somebodies—and produced therefrom a special, private, and particular bottle. This vessel, 'Ost 'Uggins was at pains to make clear, contained "real licker." He did not pour its precious golden drops into the muddy stream of commerce; but, on the contrary, he kept them tightly corked, and in strict reserve for the appreciative palates of his kindred and convives. "This is the real thing," said Mr. Huggins; "no sale for it yere."

"'Ere's to your 'ealth, Doctor," pursued 'Ost 'Uggins, "and to this young man's as well. And 'ere's wishin' that foolish young female well over 'er whack o' trouble. What's the missus 'ad to say to you to-day?"

"Same as before," replied the doctor. "She says the girl's a hussy. She says she always knew it. She says you are pig-headed and obstinate, and she will be mistress in her own house, and why don't you put up a notice saying, 'Beds for lying-in kept here,' and be done with it. And if the girl had done her duty and attended to business and kept the glasses washed instead of for ever gossiping with the Jew boys on the saloon side, this thing would never have happened. And if girls are to be petted and pampered for being bad, what is the use of having marriage lines and living decent? She also intimates that your attitude in this matter is not becoming to a married man. If she were a jealous woman she might begin to wonder if——"

Mr. Huggins smiled broadly. "My good lady, as the sayin' goes," quoth he, "would talk the 'ind leg off a donkey. But we understand each other, 'er and me, and ... we've buried three. I bin in this business for forty year, man and boy. I know life. We understand each other, Doctor. What? 'Ave another.

"'Live and let live' is my motter. She bin with us three years, that silly kid. She could go further with the eighteen gallons nor any young woman as ever served in my bar. Where's she to go if my wife as 'er way? And the kid? We buried three ourselves, which is a thing what you might think would soften a woman's 'eart. But it don't, not in circs. like this. These good women they got no 'eart—not when it comes to bad women. It's a sort of—a sort of——"

"Trade unionism," suggested Dr. Brink. And 'Ost 'Uggins, who at first looked solemn and inquiring, gradually smiled his assent to Dr. Brink's suggestion.

"I s'pose poor Phoebe is a blackleg," he mused. "But my motter is 'Live and let live.' She was wonderful coaxing with the disorderlies. What else my missus say to you?"

"She said you were looking for trouble."

"What else?"

"She said, 'Minx!' 'Damned devil!' 'Disgraceful slut!'"

"Anythink else?"

"She said that either the hussy or she would leave this house."

"And what did you say, Doctor?"

"I said that the girl was not fit to be moved, and that SHE couldn't be spared."

"And what did she say to that?"

"She said that we had made up a fine old tale between us, I and her old man."

"Is that the lot?"

"That's the lot."

"Very well then," commented Mr. Huggins. "Do you know what I shall say to it all, Doctor? I shall say: 'Tut, woman; tut!'"

"Meaning?" queried the doctor.

"Meaning?" echoed 'Ost 'Uggins, as he thumped his fist upon the counter, not without menace to its marble surface, "meaning that I am a man of few words: that I will be master in me own 'ouse: that my motter is 'Live and let live.' That I won't see a pore girl drove to ruin not for all the cantankerous whims of all the cantankerous wives in all——.

"Below there! 'Ush!" he added, with a sudden dropping of his voice. "'Ere is the missus!"

* * * * *

"Where you gointer, you George?" demanded the missus, as George prepared to leave us.

"Goin' to find that fat-'eaded boy, my dear," responded George. "There's a barrel wants tappin'."

"There's a lot more than barrels wants tappin' in this 'ouse," said Mistress Huggins, with an air which was evidently intended to be significant of much. "What you done with that gel?"

"Me, my dear?" responded the fist-strong Huggins. "Me? I ain't moved 'er."

"Time you did, then. When's she gointer leave this 'ouse?"

'Ost 'Uggins gently but firmly retreated. "I bin discussin' it over with the doctor, my dear," he explained, upon gaining the little glass door which led into their private parlour. "'E'll tell you all about it. That's right, ain't it, Doctor? You'll tell 'er all about it. Don't forget my motter, Doctor." And Mr. Huggins obliterated himself.

Mrs. Huggins, upon the contrary, and as it might be, intensified herself. "Look here, Doctor What-its-name," she said, "I kin spot the little game what is bein' played between the landlord an' you, same's if I was partner. You are gettin' up a conspiracy. See? I know it. I can't be fooled."

Mrs. Muggins was a mud-coloured woman, with a smouldering eye. She had rings on every finger and more knuckles than rings.

"I can't be fooled!" she repeated. "What you doin' with that gel?"

"Leaving her where she is," responded the doctor. "She really isn't fit to be moved." He added this information in the tone of one imparting confidences to a friend.

"Fit or not fit, do you suppose I'm gointer let 'er stop there? A low, ondecent 'ussy like what she is, to lie between my honest sheets! Take the gel away, I tell you! Do you want to make trouble between a man and 'is wife? Take the gel away!"

Dr. Brink assumed a highly authoritative tone. "It is my duty as a doctor, madam," said he, "to warn you that the girl is not fit to be moved. And your husband, who in law is the responsible head of this house, agrees with me that——"

"Why ain't she fit to be moved? Answer me that?" rasped the woman.

"Because," said the doctor, as 'Ost 'Uggins's expressive features came peeking round the doorpost, "because a poor girl of twenty who has just given birth to——"

"Given birth!" shrieked the woman. "Given birth! And in my 'ouse!

"The disgraceful, shameless thing! And me to be kept in ignorance! And now I think of it, I did seem to think or fancy as I heered a squallin'. In my 'ouse above all! May the Lord—— 'Ssh! What's that?"

"That," explained 'Ost 'Uggins, obtruding a further portion of his face, "is the little bleater callin' for 'is vittles."

Mrs. Muggins's face grew strangely red, her lip grew strangely tremulous. "It's a funny thing to me," she said, "to think as I wasn't allowed to know.... 'Oo's with 'er?"

"Mrs. Tuck, from the cabyard," responded 'Ost 'Uggins, "'as laid the fondling out an' that."

Mrs. Huggins stamped a foot. "You clumsy fool!" she cried. "What do we want your Mrs. Tucks for? A drunken piece like she is! Ain't you got enough to do in the bar without pokin' your nose into a woman's business like what this is?

"And me the last to 'ear of it! In me own 'ouse, too! Me that has buried three.

"Mrs. Tuck! Fools! Let me pass, you George! That child 'll 'ave convulsions in a minute! ... Mrs. Tuck in my 'ouse!"

* * * * *

"I wish," murmured the doctor hopelessly, as he mopped his forehead, "that I could understand the rules of their Society."

XI

THE DIAGNOSIS

I have heard it said by the enemies of Dr. Brink that he is surly, or, as some prefer to have it, brusque. I cannot too strongly express my disagreement with this view. I know the doctor intimately, and I can assert with confidence that in private intercourse he is the soul of courtesy, exactitude, and punctilio. If, during business hours, he becomes what Mrs. Duke calls "crisp"—and I won't deny that this thing sometimes happens—it behoves us, as an audience of Christian people, to view this failing with the eye of charity, and to think of the temptations which the poor man has to face.

Bovingdon Street has many graces; but gifts of mind are not conspicuous amongst them. The capacity for giving evidence is possibly an instinct and possibly an art, and even more possibly it is both. But it is a certain thing that working a mangle makes you stupid. Which, of course, accounts for Mrs. Rafferty.

She called in yesterday—a little, jug-shaped woman, having a limp fringe and mysterious pains. She is a fine example of the sort of temptation which is always luring on the Doctor to display his horrible power of crispness. She is a fine example of the Bovingdon Street matron.

I happened to be helping James to make a pancake when she came along, and I was therefore privileged to overhear the particulars of Mrs. Rafferty's disorder. And if I record exactly the dialogue to which I listened, you will be able to judge as well as I or Mrs. Rafferty whether the Doctor's sixpennyworth of diagnosis was value for money. Behold, the chronicles:—

MRS. RAFFERTY: It's my pore back I come to see you for, Doctor: that and a sort of dizziness what takes me in the leg. And me throat is sore. And I gits sich 'orrid nightmares, Doctor, and I was goin' to arst you, Doctor, do you think it right for anyone to be always feeling thirsty? Because——

DR. BRINK: How long has this been going on?

MRS. R.: I don't say as the feelin' thirsty is a unpleasant feelin', mind you; but I wondered if it was nat'ral. That's all I'm wonderin' about, Doctor. You can't 'elp noticin' anythin' like that, and anybody would fancy it's a bit queer to be always feelin' thirsty. And then the 'eadaches, Doctor! They comes on all so sudden, Doctor—unexpected, like; and if it wasn't——

DOCTOR: How long has this been going on?

MRS. R.: You can see yerself 'ow pale I'm lookin', Doctor. I 'ad a drop o' stout for me breakfast 'smornin'—no more'n would fill a teacup, Doctor—and believe me or believe me not, it brought on the pains that fearful I was obliged to scream. What do you think is the matter with me, Doctor?

DOCTOR: I shall be better able to tell you when you've answered a few questions. In the first place, how long has this sort of thing been going on?

MRS. R.: It's the pain more'n the longness of it, Doctor, which I look to. And if I close my eyes and touch anythink cold with me 'ands I kin see a lot of funny green things all in front—floatin', if you understand me, Doctor. Me 'usband, when 'e was a sowjer abroad in Dublin, 'e got took with the same thing, along o' eatin' 'ysters in a onfit state.

DOCTOR: How is your appetite, by the way?

MRS. R.: I was wonderin' if me lungs is affected, Doctor. If ever I drink a cup of very 'ot tea I kin feel a funny sensation right down me froat. What I reely want is change of hair.

DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?

MRS. R.: It's good tea what we 'ave.

DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?

MRS. R.: And besides, Doctor, I don't see as tea kin 'urt me, because me an' my 'usband we're rather partickler about the class of——

DOCTOR: Do you drink much tea?

MRS. R.: And then again, Doctor, why should me 'air be fallin' out? I'm not a old woman. Thirty-six is my age, and I ain't ashamed to own it. It's a pity me 'air is fallin' out because they say as I'm a young-looking woman for my age. And——

DOCTOR: When did you first notice that your hair was falling?

MRS. R.: I don't think that the state of me 'air is anythink to be ashamed of, even now, mind you. But still it ain't a very pleasant thing, especially at my age. Is it anythink to do with what I eat, do you think, Doctor? I often wonder.

DOCTOR: How is your appetite?

MRS. R.: It isn't the quantity I was thinkin' of, Doctor, so much as the class of food as we go in for. We both of us got a taste for 'am an' bloaters, and so forth.

DOCTOR: Do you enjoy your food?

MRS. R.: But if me 'air is fallin' out on that account——

DOCTOR: Are you a hearty eater?

MRS. R.: Of course, Doctor, I on'y want to know what's right.

DOCTOR: You say that your appetite is good?

MRS. R.: I was sayin' about us bein' partial to 'am and so forth, Doctor. If you think I oughter stop it, I kin easy do so. I on'y wanter do what's right. What's your opinion about me, Doctor? You can see I'm very ill.

DOCTOR: I'm giving you some medicine, Mrs. Rafferty—you've brought your bottle, I see—it's a strong tonic, and there are three pills with it, which——

MRS. R.: I forgot to arst you, Doctor. Do you think a drop of stout—as much as you kin get into a egg-cup—would 'urt a little boy of five years old what's got a poverty of 'is blood? There's a neighbour o' mine—a very nice woman—wh——

DOCTOR: About these pills, Mrs. Rafferty: I want you to take one when you get in, one before you go to bed, and one——

MRS. R.: Can I take a little slice of 'am, Doctor, or must I live on slops and that?

DOCTOR: You can eat exactly what you please. This medicine will put you right. It is a very strong, dark red tonic. Do you understand about the pills, now?

MRS. R.: She's a nice woman, and it's sad to see her strugglin' along by 'erself wiv that boy to keep. And so I told 'er——

DOCTOR: Send her round to see me. You'll get your medicine from the dispenser.

MRS. R.: About me wrists, Doctor: I find that one is thicker than——

DOCTOR: Come and see me again when you've finished that medicine. Pay outside.

MRS. R.: And, Doctor, is there anything more besides the physic? I thought perhaps you would give me a pill.

DOCTOR: I am giving you three pills. One of them I want you to take when you get in, another at night, and——

MRS. R.: About the money, Doctor: I s'pose as it'll do if I pay next week?

XII

THE TUSKERS

It has not been the fortune of the present historian to enjoy a personal experience of the state of matrimony. But he has never been lacking in awe for the wonders attaching to that institution. It has always seemed to him, looking upward, as it were, from the mire of bachelordom, that the married mind is subject to rare emotions, productive of a singular philosophy which one must view with astonishment, if not with envy.

In illustration of my meaning, permit me to cite the case of the Tuskers.

The Tuskers, as we were definitely informed by Mr. Tusker, have been tasting the wedded blisses for nearly eighteen years. And Mr. Tusker called in recently at Doctor Brink's in the matter, as he expressed it, of "any old bottles, any old rags; old bones, rabbit-skins, waste paper to buy," which somehow looks wrong. Let us try again—

Any old bottles?

Any old rags?

Old bones,

Rabbit-skins,

Waste paper,

To buy!

That is better. Mr. Tusker is nothing if not lyrical.

Also, he is a massy-jawed person in a muffler, having a dent over one eye and a limpy walk. Likewise, he is accompanied by an objectionable smell, arising partly from his trade, profession, or occupation. It is an impressionist sort of smell. The impression it suggested to me was that Mr. Tusker had been subjected to long, long years of solitary confinement in an over-heated chicken-coop.

Mr. Tusker, having recited his little poem, was rewarded by a "Not to-day, thank you," from Doctor Brink.

"What?" cried Mr. Tusker. "Not any old bottles; any old rags?"

"No," insisted Doctor Brink.

"Ho," quoth Mr. Tusker. "Right you are, then. One minute, Doctor. The missus. Ahtside. Can I trouble you?"

"How?" inquired the doctor.

"You know, mate," expounded Mr. Tusker. "Below par. Orfer oats. See? Jes' run the rule over 'er, Doctor; will ye?"

"Certainly," replied the doctor, the light of intelligence at last illuminating his eye. "Bring the lady inside."

Mr. Tusker accordingly repaired to the roadway, where his barrow was in waiting. It was a roomy barrow, filled to overflowing with bulging sacks, one of which, being pushed, came to life as Mrs. Tusker, and walked into Doctor Brink's consulting-room.

She was a tired old sack, was Mrs. Tusker, much patched, even as to her face, which was further distinguished by being bruised in several places, a fact which accentuated its native homeliness.

"Below par. Orfer oats," repeated Mr. Tusker, with a jerk of the thumb in the direction of the old sack. "Jes' run yere rule over 'er, Doc."

"Had a bad accident, hasn't she?" began the doctor. "That plaster——"

"Never mind the plaster," said the husband.

"No," repeated Mrs. Tusker, "never mind that."

"Orfer oats, see?" prompted Mr. Tusker.

"Ain't got no appetite," confirmed the lady.

"'Er system. See?" added Mr. Tusker.

"Yus," assented Mrs. Tusker. "Me system."

"Jes' run yere rule over 'er," said Mr. Tusker.

"Well," mused the doctor, "want of appetite doesn't produce itself, you know. I mean to say—— Her face now. It's very swollen. The lower part espec——"

"Never mind 'er face, ole man," suggested Mr. Tusker.

"No," said the patient; "never mind me face."

"I done that, ye see," remarked Mr. Tusker.

"Yus," replied Mrs. Tusker, "'e done that."

Doctor Brink, after staring hard at Mr. Tusker, resumed his inspection of the wife. "I don't know what sort of appetite you expect to have," he said, "with those four bruises. Her face is simply pul——"

"Oh!" reflected Mr. Tusker, "them marks is out o' date. They put me away for them."

Mrs. Tusker nodded.

"I—I don't quite understand," exclaimed the doctor.

"I done 'em of a Saturday night, ye see," explained the husband. "And they put me away to the Scrubs. Three weeks I was in."

"Three weeks," repeated Mrs. Tusker.

"They on'y let me out s'mornin'."

This statement was audited and found correct by Mrs. Tusker. "On'y this mornin'," she said.

"This is the state I find 'er in," continued Mr. Tusker. "Orfer oats. They put me away. See? And there wasn't no one to look arter 'er."