"Did you see me?"
"Carried by on a stretcher—and your face the colour of that."
The woman pointed to the marble counter-top.
"I was a serious case," said Tilda impressively. "The people at the Good Samaritan couldn' remember admittin' the likes of it. There were complications."
"You don't say!"
"But what's become of Maggs's?"
"Maggs's left a week ago come Tuesday. I know, because they used to buy their milk of me. They were the first a'most, and the last was the Menagerie and Gavel's Roundabouts. They packed up last night. It must be a wearin' life," commented the shopwoman. "But for my part I like the shows, and so I tell Damper—that's my 'usband. They put a bit of colour into the place while they last, besides bein' free-'anded with their money. Light come light go, I reckon; but anyway, it's different from cows. So you suffered from complications, did you?"
"Internal," Tilda assured her in a voice as hollow as she could make it.
"I must have spit up a quart of blood, first an' last. An' the medicine
I 'ad to take! You wouldn' think it, but the colour was pale
'eliotrope."
"I wonder," said Mrs. Damper sympathetically—"I wonder it stayed in the stomach."
"It didn'."
"Wouldn' you fancy a glass o' milk, now?"