“I ought to have been met,” said Sir Alpheus, entering, “I ought to have been met. It’s ridiculous to pretend you didn’t know the time. A general practitioner always knows the time. It is his first duty. I cannot understand the incivility of this reception. I have had to make my way to your surgery, Dr. Barrack, without assistance; not a cab free at the station; I have had to come down this road in the heat, carrying everything myself, reading all the names on the gates—the most ridiculous and banal names. The Taj, Thyme Bank, The Cedars, and Capernaum, cheek by jowl! It’s worse than Freud.”
Dr. Barrack expressed further regrets confusedly and indistinctly.
“We have been talking, Sir Alpheus,” said Sir Eliphaz, advancing as if to protect the doctor from his specialist, “upon some very absorbing topics. That must be our excuse for this neglect. We have been discussing education—and the universe. Fate, free-will, predestination absolute.” It is not every building contractor can quote Milton.
The great surgeon regarded the patentee of Temanite.
“Fate—fiddlesticks!” said Sir Alpheus suddenly and rudely. “That’s no excuse for not meeting me.” His bright little eyes darted round the company and recognized Mr. Huss. “What! my patient not in bed! Not even in bed! Go to bed, sir! Go to bed!”
He became extremely abusive to Dr. Barrack. “You treat an operation, Sir, with a levity—!”
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
THE OPERATION
§ 1
While Sir Alpheus grumbled loudly at the unpreparedness of everything, Mr. Huss, with the assistance of Dr. Barrack, walked upstairs and disrobed himself.
This long discussion had taken a very powerful grip upon his mind. Much remained uncertain in his thoughts. He had still a number of things he wanted to say, and these proceedings preliminary to his vivisection, seemed to him to be irrelevant and tiresome rites interrupting something far more important.