"Yes?"
"Yes. Haven't you read about it in the papers?"
"Well, I may have seen something about it," said Mr. Earlforward. But he had not seen anything about it, nor did he care anything about it. He held the common view that hospitals were maintained by magic, or if not by magic, then by the cheques of millionaires in great houses in the West End who paid subscriptions as they paid their rates and taxes.
"Yes. The London Hospital—our largest hospital—unparalleled work in the East End, you know—the London's thinking of closing a hundred beds. A calamity, but there seems to be no alternative. My wife's interesting herself in Lord Knutsford's special effort to save the beds; she used to be on the staff. I was just wondering whether you'd care to give me something for her list. ... I thought I might mention it—as I'm not here professionally. Here as a customer, you see." He gave one of his little, nervous laughs.
Mr. Earlforward perceived that the doctor had not been merely breaking a silence. He perceived also that Violet, mysteriously excited by the name of the legendary subscription-collecting peer who directed the London Hospital, was "willing" him to practise charity on this occasion. He keenly regretted, as the doctor developed his subject, that he had left the price of the Shakspere on the desk. There it lay, waiting to be given, asking to be given! There it lay and could not be ignored. The doctor was, of course, being impudent again; but there the money lay. Half a crown? Too little. Two half-crowns, those bright and lovely objects? Too little—or at any rate too little so long as the notes lay beside them. A note? Impossible! Fantastic! The situation was desperate, and Mr. Earlforward in agony. He could not in decency refuse—he a Londoner, fond of London and its institutions—he an established tradesman; neither could he part with his money. He was about to martyrize himself; his hand, each finger separately suffering, hovered over one of the notes, when deliverance occurred to him.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said he, and picked up a thin, tattered, quarto volume that was lying on the desk. "I'll make you a sporting offer. Here's one of the earliest collected editions of Gray's Poems."
"Gray? Gray?" reflected the doctor, and aloud: "Elegy in a Country Churchyard sort of thing?"
"Yes. This is the Glasgow edition, and I can't remember now whether it or the London edition was the first—the first collected edition, I mean. They are both dated 1768. I'll give you this for your hospital. You take it to Sotherans or Bain, and see what it'll fetch."
The doctor opened the book.
"'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desart air.'"