"A disabled Burmese," was the reply. "I trust to find some part of his upper-works in a more or less damaged condition."
"Burmese!" he echoed in an exclamation. "Good. I win. Larrimer bet me a five he was a Javanese." The doctor sniffed scornfully, "Devilish lot Larrimer knows about ethnology." He then became lucid.
"Larrimer's head at the Drevel Hospital, y' know; deuced clever at the operating-table, but set in his ideas. Lord, dynamite would n't move him; stubborn's no name for it.
"Your Burmese is there: triple fracture of the left parietal, left clavicle and bladebone badly crushed; trephined him last night. Beggar 'll die."
"It certainly sounds serious enough," commented I. "Is the parietal a part of his upper-works?"
He jabbed with the tip of one gloved finger the side of my head nearest him, which happened to be the right.
"That's your right parietal," he explained; "the left one 's on the other side."
"Thank Heaven for sending you across my path this day!"—fervently. "That's my man."
The doctor was a good deal of a scoffer. "Heaven had nothing to do with it," said he, with unnecessary asperity. "I knew you 'd be wanting to see him; I was hunting for you. Beggar speaks English fairly well, and he let out a word or two that made me think he knew something you ought to know.… Whoa! Jump out!"
We entered the hospital, and soon were at the bedside of the dying man. The operation had relieved the brain from the pressure of the fractured skull, and the man's wanderings were interspersed with rational periods, during which his story was taken down in shorthand, with infinite difficulty, by the hospital's stenographer. I have taken the liberty of preparing a summary from the long rambling account, sufficient to show my justification for anticipating that the case was on the eve of taking an unexpected turn, and to satisfy the curious respecting certain aspects of the ruby's history.