“That’s a pity . . . a pity. You could have been very useful to me in that way, keeping cases going, you know, so that I could be in at the finish. I could do twice the amount of midwifery that I do now if I had some one to keep an eye on them. Before the General Medical Council did away with unqualified assistants, I used to keep three of them: paid me well, too. Now I’ve got to do everything myself. It’s a dog’s life, but there’s money in it, I don’t mind telling you. Well, there’s no time to waste. What do you want?”
“I want a place to live in and my keep, and just enough money to keep me going till I’m qualified. That’s all. You’ll understand . . . I’m on my own, and I’ve just about ten pounds to carry me over a year. I hope you can give me a job.”
“I suppose you could take a hand with dressings and things like that?”
Edwin saw that the little man was out for bargaining, but as long as he could feel that something was being settled he didn’t really mind.
“Yes . . . I can do anything you like to use me for in your surgery hours. I can’t promise more. You see, I have to pass my final.”
“You can learn a lot of useful things about general practice here,” said Dr. Harris. “It should be extremely useful to you. You see, I’ve been at this game for thirty years. It’s a great chance for you.” He took up a handful of silver from the open drawer and started to jingle it. “Look here, you’re wasting time.”
Edwin agreed.
“Well, suppose I take you on, I might be able to give you three . . . better say two pounds a month. You can feed up at my place and sleep here. If you sleep here, you’ll be able to take night-messages and telephone them up to me. There’s a bedroom fitted up. One of my assistants used to sleep here. How will that suit you?”
With a feeling of intense relief Edwin accepted.
“Very well, then, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t begin at once, just to get into the way of things.” He paused, and added as an after-thought: “We’ll count that you start from to-morrow.”