"Tell me about the dog," she said.
So I described the dog for nearly twenty minutes, much to the enragement of many mourners, who were waiting for an audience. When the laws of decency compelled me to retreat, she was so kind as to ask me to convey a form of greeting to the new dog.
"I will come and see him one day," she said. "But they won't let me move for weeks yet, and when they do I've got to go to Bournemouth and be wheeled about in a bath-chair. Isn't it horrid?"
"It is," I admitted, and I turned away to meet the cod-fish eye and collected expression of Sir Marmaduke Wilkins, M.R.C.S. That scientist was eating an ice with relish.
* * * * *
You may wonder what connection I trace between this episode and the life of Bovingdon Street. There is a connection; but it traced itself. I left the Muntz's stately mansion feeling in need of distraction, and that distraction I sought from Doctor Brink and James. And James was full of news.
"I've begun my professional education," she said. "I administered chloroform to a case last week. Fee sixpence. Fatty still owes it me."
I turned to Fatty for his explanations.
"Pity me," said that gentleman, "I have a hussy for a daughter. One who makes sport of her poor old father's need. I do owe her the money. I shall continue to owe it. I am entitled to owe it. I only got half-a-crown for the whole thing—anæsthetist's fee included.
"Men like Marmaduke Wilkins get a hundred guineas for the same operation. And then the patient has to pay another ten or twenty for the anæsthetist. When a high-class, if modest surgeon, like myself, consents to perform these things for a wage which would offend the dignity of a dustman, why, damme, it is his duty to swindle the anæsthetist. Why——"