This reminded him of the stirring days and nights of the preceding autumn. He started up at once to answer the summons.
"Who's there?"
"Is Doctor Rocke in?"
"Yes, what's wanted?"
"A gentleman, sir, in the house here, sir, taken very bad, wants the doctor directly, room number 555."
"Very well, I will be with the gentleman immediately," answered Traverse, plunging his head into a basin of cold water and drying it hastily.
In five minutes Traverse was in the office of the hotel, inquiring for a waiter to show him up into 555.
One was ordered to attend him, who led the way up several flights of stairs and around divers galleries, until he opened a door and ushered the doctor immediately into the sick room.
There was a little, old, dried-up Frenchman in a blue night-cap, extended on a bed in the middle of the room and covered with a white counterpane that clung close to his rigid form as to a corpse.
And there was a little, old, dried-up Frenchwoman in a brown merino gown and a high-crowned muslin cap who hopped and chattered about the bed like a frightened magpie.