In the well-appointed kitchen garden, where stout-limbed pear trees bordered square beds of sprouting lettuce, Aurelle joined O'Grady.
"Doctor, you're a great man, and my old lady is saved. But it appears she ought to thank her lucky stars for having placed her under the British Protectorate, which, in exchange for her freedom, provides
her with a faultless tennis lawn and microbeless water."
"There is nothing," said the doctor gravely, "that the British Government is not ready to do for the good of the natives."
CHAPTER III
THE TOWER OF BABEL
"Des barques romaines, disais-je.—Non, disais-tu, portugaises."—Jean Giraudoux.
"Wot you require, sir," interrupted Private Brommit, "is a glass o' boilin' 'ot milk an' whisky, with lots o' cinnamon."
Aurelle, who was suffering from an attack of influenza, was at Estrées, under the care of Dr. O'Grady, who tirelessly prescribed ammoniated quinine.
"I say, doctor," said the young Frenchman, "this is a drug that's utterly unknown in France. It seems strange that medicines should have a nationality."
"Why shouldn't they?" said the doctor. "Many diseases are national.