“And last year I had a bicycle accident. I was brought back here with a very showy arm; in a cab. Poor Mrs. Bailey fainted. It was not at all serious. But they gave me their best room, the one behind this, for weeks and waited upon me most beautifully, and mind you they did not expect any compensation, they knew I could not afford it.”
“An injury that should disable for so many weeks shall not have been a light one.”
“That was the doctor. You see it was Saturday. It was more than an hour before they could find anyone at all, and then they found a small surgeon in Gower Street. He stitched up my arm with a rusty darning needle taken from Mrs. Bailey’s work-basket just as it was. I told him I had some carbolic in my room; but he said Nevorr mind that. I’m not one of yrr faddists, and bound it all up and I came down to dinner. I had just come back from the first week of my holiday; bicycling in Buckinghamshire, perfect, I never felt so well in my life. I was going to Paris the next day.”
“That was indeed most unfortunate.”
“Well I don’t know. I was going with a woman I did not really know. I meant to go, and she had been thinking of going and knew Paris and where to stay cheaply and suggested we should join forces. A sort of marriage of convenience. I was not really disappointed. I was relieved; though awfully sorry to fail her. But everyone was so kind I was simply astonished. I spent the evening on the sofa in the dining-room; and they all sat quietly about near me. One man, a Swede, who had only just arrived, sat on the end of the sofa and told Swedish folk stories in a quiet motherly voice, and turned out afterwards to be the noisiest, jolliest, most screamingly funny man we have ever had here. About eleven o’clock I felt faint and we discovered that my arm must have broken out again some time before. Two of the men rushed off to find a doctor and brought an extraordinary little old retired surgeon with white hair and trembling hands. He wheezed and puffed and bound me up afresh and went away refusing a fee. I wanted some milk, and the Swede went out at midnight and found some somewhere ...... I come back with at least one cow or I come not at all..... Of course a week later I had stitch abscesses.”
“But this man was a criminal.”
“Yes wasn’t it abominable. Poor man. The two doctors who saw my arm later said that many limbs have been lost for less. He counted on my being in such good health. He told Mrs. Bailey I was in splendid health. But he sent in a big bill.”
“I sincerely trust you did not pay this.”
“I sent him a description of his operation, told him the result and said that my friends considered that I ought to prosecute him.”
“Certainly it was your duty.”