Ten minutes passed, and then Walters, accompanied by a big, stout, red-faced man, came in.
“Ha, here you are, old man. Jack, Dr. Parsons—the man who does the resuscitating and such silly business of this institution; Parsons, my old friend, Jack Harrington. Sergeant, where is that whisky?”
“Is the woman dead, doctor?” asked Harrington presently, as the sergeant's wife brought in a bottle of whisky and some glasses.
“No,” replied the police doctor slowly, as he poured some whisky into his glass, “she is not dead; but she may not live much longer—a day or so perhaps. It all depends. Shock to the system.”
“One of the usual sort, Parsons, I suppose?” inquired Walters—“left the baby on the wharf, with a written request for some 'kind Christian to love it,' eh?”
The fat doctor grunted. “You're a beast, Walters. There's no baby in the case. Here, give me ten shillings—you'll spend more than that in drinks before you go to bed to-night This girl isn't one of the usual sort. She's a lady—and she's been starving. So ante-up, you ex-nigger-shooting Queensland policeman; and I'll add another half-sov. Then perhaps your friend will give me something for her. And I'm not going to send her off to the hospital. I'm going to take her to some people I know, and ask them to keep her for a few days until she gets round.”
Harrington put his hand in his pocket, and then in a nervous, diffident way, looking first at Walters and then at the doctor, put five sovereigns on the table.
“I'm pretty flush now, you know.... I'm not a plunger, but I shall be glad, doctor, if you will take that and give it to her.... I was almost starving myself once—-you know, Walters, when I got the sack from the 'Morning Star' Mine for plugging the English manager when he called me a 'damned colonial lout.'”
The fat-faced doctor looked steadily at him for a moment or two. Then he reached out his hand.
“You're a good fellow, Mr. Harrington. I'll take a sovereign or two. Come in here with me.”