"What was your patient?" I asked.
"The patient? Oh, a girl in Mulberry Street. Works at the pickle factory. Pretty girl, only eighteen. James cried. Rather unprofessional, what? Now she has the cheek to ask for sixpence!"
"What was—er—the result of your high-class surgery? Is the girl alive?"
"Alive! Why, my insulting young friend, she's back again at the pickle works. Went to work on the sixth day. My girls don't die."
"At work again in six days—after—after that! And you let her!"
"Better work than starve," said the doctor brusquely.... "How did you enjoy yourself at Hampstead this afternoon?"
XXII
LOST!
It isn't often that Dr. Brink permits himself to have emotions during business hours, but even the doctor looked astonished when O'Flannigan came into his consulting-room. We called him O'Flannigan, because he did not leave a visiting-card, and we had to call him something. And he spoke with a trace of the Irish accent. He was a very tall man and very stout, having dead-white hair, which he wore in curls, and a very red face. His clothes were all of them black, and they shone in places with a sort of oily lustre. He wore black gloves and a black tie, and he carried a black umbrella.
"Evenin', Doctorrr," said he; "ut's a fine place ye got hearrr!"