The Maestro went to see the Post-Surgeon. But the Post-Surgeon had been in the Philippines four years. That is, his ideal of life now was to slop about his room all day in a kimona, smoking cigarette after cigarette and drinking whiskey-and-soda after whiskey-and-soda. To go out and see a sick child, especially when that sick child happened to have a brown skin, demanded an effort absolutely colossal for the corroded shreds of his moral strength. It took several days of begging, remonstrance, appeal, almost threats to galvanize the dead fibres. At last the Doctor slipped into a khaki and walked a hundred yards with the Maestro to the hut by the river.
He examined the boy with a vague, returning ghost of professional interest.
"Curvature of the spine," he said at length.
"No cure?" asked the Maestro.
"No, he'll die; it may take several years."
"Will he suffer?"
The surgeon pointed to the child. The little body was vibrating in exquisite torture and cold beads of sweat were welling up on the stoical Malay face.
That night the Maestro went to the Post Hospital and asked the steward for some morphine.
"The dose is——" the steward started to say, giving him the pellets.
"I know, I know," the Maestro broke out hastily. "I've used it often."