The surgeon came over to the window and for a moment stood looking down into the deserted court. The sun had sunk lower, and now its rays came slantwise under the awning and through the opened sashes, to flash in dazzling brightness upon the polished blades and glittering spear-heads of the barbaric weapons clustered on the wall above the bookcase. A fly buzzed its way across the broad track of light, and Bones made a sweep at it with his big hand, but the wary little insect promptly changed direction by the right flank, gave the slip to his burly enemy, and joined a squad of his kindred deployed in open order upon the ceiling.
“Quiet, isn’t it?” said the medicine-man; “quiet as an empty fizz-bottle. Never knew the old shop to be so empty at this late hour of the afternoon.”
“It’s July,” I suggested, “and half the fellows are out of town.”
Bones turned and glanced down the long room towards Sam’s corner, whence at intervals came the low sound of a contented snore. “Seems something like church, eh?” he said. “We haven’t the sermon, but the proper accompaniment is all here. I take it that the veteran has yielded to heat prostration. Well, I’ll not bother him: I can be my own commissary. Ginger-pop and ice wouldn’t be deadly in the present state of the atmosphere. What do you say?”
“I’ll follow your lead,” said I, rapping out the ashes from my pipe; “ginger-pop’ll do for the foundation—and I can trust you to trim it up properly.”
Stepping softly, the surgeon made his way into Sam’s province, presently returning in triumph with two tall glasses of golden-brown nectar, crested with finely crushed ice, and faintly suggestive of old Monogram. I manœuvred a small table into position between two roomy arm-chairs, and then refilled and lighted my pipe.
“Here’s fun!” said the doctor, politely nodding in my direction, and causing a perceptible ebb in the icy tide in his glass. I made haste to secure the remaining tumbler before replying, in deference to Bones’ profession, “Here’s hoping for an epidemic!”
“Now, speaking of The Forty Thieves,” said the doctor, setting his glass back upon the table, and thereby adding another ring of moisture to the two already in evidence upon the polished wood, “I suppose the proudest day in their history was when—just hand over that pipe, will you? It seems to be drawing like a regular flue; mine’s stopped.”
I groaned, but handed over my pipe and rose to hunt for another one. “Now you can chatter along like an accommodation train,” I said, after I had got myself finally settled, with a fresh corn-cob in one hand and my glass within easy reach of the other.
“Meaning with plenty of smoke, and frequent stops for refreshments? Precisely,” said Bones. “Well, it was a great day—the day when The Forty Thieves did up All-Italy. And nobody told me about that, either: omnia ququæ vidi, quorum magna pars fui—Latin!”