“I don’t know,” he said slowly, “but I should think it would be wiser for you to keep indoors. You might make me up a bed in your sitting-room, and if there is any bother, we can share it.”
“And whistle to keep my courage up?” sneered Angel. “I’ll make you up a bed with all the pleasure in life; but I’m going out, Jimmy, and I’ll take you with me, if you’ll agree to come along and find a man who will replace that conspicuous white bandage by something less blood-curdling.”
They found a man in Devonshire Place who was a mutual friend of both. He was a specialist in unpronounceable diseases, a Knight Commander of St. Michael and St. George, a Fellow of the two Colleges, and the author of half a dozen works of medical science. Angel addressed him as “Bill.”
The great surgeon deftly dressed the damaged head of Jimmy, and wisely asked no questions. He knew them both, and had been at Oxford with one, and he permitted himself to indulge in caustic comments on their mode of life and the possibilities of their end.
“If you didn’t jaw so much,” said Angel, “I’d employ you regularly; as it is, I am very doubtful if I shall ever bring you another case.”
“For which,” said Sir William Farran, as he clipped the loose ends of the dressing, “I am greatly obliged to you, Angel Esquire. You are the sort of patient I like to see about once a year—just about Christmas-time, when I am surfeited with charity toward mankind, when I need a healthy moral corrective to tone down the bright picture to its normal grayness—that’s the time you’re welcome, Angel.”
“Fine!” said Angel ecstatically. “I’d like to see that sentence in a book, with illustrations.”
The surgeon smiled good-humoredly. He put a final touch to the dressing.
“There you are,” he said.
“Thank you, Bill,” said Jimmy. “You’re getting fat.”