“Excuse me, Signora, it will be better to wait till the porter returns and ask him either to carry the basket himself or to send another with it. These people are very suspicious; they might think that I was trying to smuggle something into the hospital. The idea is, of course, ridiculous, but these hospital employés are strangely suspicious people.”
At that moment an enormous red-haired woman wearing a checked apron came towards us; she spoke pleasantly to Filomena. “Well, my girl, I hear that your brother is getting better fast. Ah! he has a good sister.” As she spoke the giantess enveloped Filomena in a capacious embrace. Beginning at the girl’s slender throat she passed her great arms and hands down her body to the very feet, feeling her all over, pressing the light cotton skirts so close about her that she looked like a Tanagra figurine. Though Filomena endured the searching embrace with composure, I saw her glance at me, and there is no denying that she turned scarlet.
“Nothing contraband this morning, eh?” said the good-natured giantess.
“This is my mistress,” Filomena interposed, anxious to shield herself under my ægis. “She has brought some refreshments to a gentleman who was hurt in the railroad accident last night. She has a letter from Dr. Massimo.”
The giantess bowed to me politely. “There will be no difficulty, that will arrange itself,” she said. “Won’t you be seated, Madam, till the doctor comes? It is against the rule to allow any provisions to pass without a special permission from the house physician. This pretty one does not see the use of that rule, do you, my dear?”
If looks could kill, the giantess would have died, slain by the rage in Filomena’s beautiful eyes.
I found Patsy, smelling horribly of carbolic acid, in a small iron bed, a chart of his injuries—slight but numerous—fixed at the head of the cot. His powers of speech had not been impaired.
“I knew you would come. Have you brought the soup, and some decent wine? There’s the jolliest sister who takes care of me—that tall one with the red cheeks—isn’t she a corker? She will heat the broth and cool the wine.”
I asked the sister how long she would be obliged to keep her troublesome patient. She said, “Only a few days; he might possibly be moved to-morrow.” That was a hint for us to take him home, which I offered to do. Patsy would not hear of this.
“Think of the copy I am getting,” he said. “I know more about the Italian medical profession, nurses, and hospitals than I could have learned in a year’s study outside. I have notes for three articles already.”