“She’s only middling. She was complaining these two days of an impression on the chest, and a sort of rumbling within in herself that wouldn’t let her rest easy in her bed.”
“Do you tell me that? And did you fetch the doctor to her?”
“I did not then.”
“And why not?”
Patsy Devlin finished the porter and winked across the bar at Jimmy O’Loughlin. Jimmy failed to catch the meaning of the wink.
“If it was a red ticket you wanted,” he said, “you know very well that you’ve nothing to do but ask me for it. But Dr. O’Grady, the poor man, would go to you without that.”
“If I did be wanting a red ticket,” said Patsy, “it wouldn’t be you I’d ask for it. There’s them would give it to me and maybe something along with it, and what’s more, did give it to me no later than this morning.”
“Well,” said Jimmy, who guessed at the identity of the unnamed benefactor, “and if so be that his lordship is after giving you the ticket, why didn’t you go and fetch the doctor to herself?”
“I went for him right enough.”
“And do you mean to tell me that he refused to attend the call and you with the red ticket in your hand? For if he did——”