“Not your eye?” Dr. Horace Wilkinson was beginning to be a little doubtful as to the advantages of quick diagnosis. It is an excellent thing to be able to surprise a patient, but hitherto it was always the patient who had surprised him.
“The baby’s got the measles.”
The mother parted the red shawl, and exhibited a little dark, black-eyed gypsy baby, whose swarthy face was all flushed and mottled with a dark-red rash. The child breathed with a rattling sound, and it looked up at the doctor with eyes which were heavy with want of sleep and crusted together at the lids.
“Hum! Yes. Measles, sure enough—and a smart attack.”
“I just wanted you to see her, sir, so that you could signify.”
“Could what?”
“Signify, if anything happened.”
“Oh, I see—certify.”
“And now that you’ve seen it, sir, I’ll go on, for Reuben—that’s my man—is in a hurry.”
“But don’t you want any medicine?”