"May I say, doctor, how wise I think your decision to come over to us?"—He spoke as if Ballarat East were in the heart of the Russian steppes. "And that reminds me. There's a friend of mine.... I may be able at once to put a patient in your way."
Mahony walked home in a mood of depression which it took all Polly's arts to dispel.
Under its influence he wrote an outspoken letter to Purdy—but with no very satisfactory result. It was like projecting a feeler for sympathy into the void, so long was it since they had met, and so widely had his friend's life branched from his.
Purdy's answer—it was headed "The Ovens"—did not arrive till several weeks later, and was mainly about himself.
IN A WAY I'M WITH YOU, OLD PILL-BOX, he wrote. YOU'LL CUT A JOLLY SIGHT BETTER FIGURE AS AN M.D. THEN EVER YOU'VE DONE BEHIND A COUNTER. BUT I DON'T KNOW THAT I'D CARE TO STAKE MY LAST DOLLAR ON YOU ALL THE SAME. WHAT DOES MRS. POLLY SAY?—AS FOR ME, OLD BOY, SINCE YOU'RE GOOD ENOUGH TO ASK, WHY THE LESS SAID THE BETTER. ONE OF THESE DAYS A POOR WORN OLD SHICER'LL COME CRAWLING ROUND TO YOUR BACK DOOR TO SEE IF YOU'VE ANY CAST-OFF DUDS YOU CAN SPARE HIM. SERIOUSLY, DICK, OLD MAN, I'M STONY-BROKE ONCE MORE AND THE LORD ONLY KNOWS HOW I'M GOING TO WIN THROUGH.
In the course of that winter, custom died a natural death; and one day, the few oddments that remained having been sold by auction, Mahony and his assistant nailed boards horizontally across the entrance to the store. The day of weighing out pepper and salt was over; never again would the tinny jangle of the accursed bell smite his ears. The next thing was that Hempel packed his chattels and departed for his new walk in life. Mahony was not sorry to see him go. Hempel's thoughts had soared far above the counter; he was arrived at the stage of: "I'm just as good as you!" which everyone here reached sooner or later.
"I shall always be pleased to hear how you are getting on."
Mahony spoke kindly, but in a tone which, as Polly who stood by, very well knew, people were apt to misunderstand.
"I should think so!" she chimed in. "I shall feel very hurt indeed, Hempel, if you don't come and see us."
With regard to Long Jim, she had a talk with her husband one night as they went to bed.