“Mind, Harry—Rogers,” he said, in a high-pitched voice, “it’s as if something red-hot was running through my chest! Ah-h-h!”
“Support him, gentlemen,” said the doctor. “Mind he doesn’t faint. Here, quick! Here!”
He spoke in sharp, decided tones, as he directed and helped them to lay the injured man upon the settee, where he subsided with a querulous cry, grinding his teeth the while, and compressing his lips.
“Kindly shut both doors,” said the doctor; and the man who had first spoken, and who looked very pale, obeyed.
“So cursedly unlucky!” he said excitedly. “I never saw such a fog. They’ve no business to allow men to drive fast on a night like this.”
“Don’t talk, old chap. Not serious, I hope, doctor?” said the Mephistophelean man. “Cab seemed to come out of the fog, and he was knocked down. I got an ugly blow on the shoulder.”
“Get me some brandy,” said the injured man faintly. “My chest’s crushed.”
“No, no, not so bad as that,” said the doctor kindly. “You shall have a stimulus soon. Now, then, suppose we see what the damage is. A broken rib, I expect, and that will only mean a little pain. Now, then.”
His busy fingers were rapidly and tenderly unbuttoning the injured man’s coat, while a gasping moan came from his lips.
“Hurts me horribly—to breathe, doctor.”