"I don't wanter 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.'"