"Useless."
"Then don't say so out loud, as he's not yet unconscious."
The poor fellow gripped my hand as proof. The physician blushed scarlet.
"I'll give him an injection of ether and then you take him in your cart to the nearest hospital—it's Provins—twenty miles from here."
He jabbed in the needle, and then handing it with a phial to me: "Here—take this. I'm clearing out. Got a wife and baby to save. Keep his heart going—there's a ghost of a chance. Adieu!"
I stood petrified.
"Take him away, I'm closing up! Take him away—" screamed the hostess, who had recovered from her swoon.
I looked at the old man who had brought the boy.
"Where are you going with your cart?"
"To Coulommiers—to save my sister-in-law and her children."