There is a quiet street in a Melbourne suburb—a street lined with big trees, where in the long, hot days you can hear the soft cooing of wood pigeons; and yet so near the great highway of St. Kilda Road that the clang of the tram bells comes clearly. There are queer wild creatures there yet; the mopokes call at night in Fawkner Park, undisturbed by the racing motors along Toorak Road, and some quick-eyed people declare that they have seen 'possums dart across the tram lines. If you sleep out on a balcony, as wise folk do, you may see owls flit by, even while in the small hours the string of market carts from the country creeps into Melbourne, the horses plodding along steadily, while the tired drivers curl up on the seats asleep. But the carts do not come up the quiet street. It lies dreaming until the magpies in the Grammar School trees carol their morning song.
Back from the road in the quiet street stands a big house, girdled with wide verandahs. It is the quietest place of all, though at all hours of the day and night there are motors before its gate. Its wide lawns and gardens shelter behind tall pittosporum hedges; climbing roses and tecoma have clambered up the posts, making a screen to shield the balconies. It never sleeps, although it is so quiet; white-uniformed nurses flit here and there about it by night and day, and often the big glass dome of a room at the back blazes with light throughout the night, as busy surgeons fight Death over an unconscious form. In the daytime there are beds and stretchers under the trees on the lawns, or sheltered by gaily-striped tents; and people pass in and out, taking sheaves of flowers to the people within, or leading pale-faced convalescents home, to take up life anew. But it is a cheery place, as a house of healing should be; it had seemed to smile to Dick Lester when they brought him there from the ship, so brown and merry, after a week on deck, that it was hard to understand why he should lie so still.
Neil Fraser gave his verdict next day.
"It's for you to decide," he told Dick's parents. "There is a chance; I'll admit it's a slender one. If you decide to have no operation he will probably live a long time, as they told you before—always a cripple. Will he suffer? Yes, probably, at intervals—a good deal; and there is always a chance of worse trouble developing."
"And the operation?" John Lester said.
"It is a risk. I've done it successfully; I've seen as good a man as I am fail. Should it fail, it means a worse condition; possibly hastening the end. If it should succeed—well, Dick will walk out of the hospital."
Mrs. Lester drew a long breath.
"Will you tell me," she begged, "if you would advise us to have it done?"
"Ah, that's too much to ask me," he said gently. "That is surely only for you and his father to say. I can only tell you the chances."
There was silence for several minutes. Then the mother spoke, quickly.