I found Usher in the act of bowing out the last of the “evening consultations,” and was welcomed by him with enthusiasm.
“Delighted to see you, old chap!” he exclaimed, shaking my hand warmly. “It is good of you to drop in on an old fossil like me. Didn’t much think you would. I suppose you don’t often come this way?”
“No,” I replied. “It is rather off my beat. I’ve finished with Hoxton—for the present, at any rate.”
“So have I,” said Usher, “since poor old Crile went off to the better land.”
“Crile?” I repeated. “Who was he?”
“Don’t you remember my telling you about his funeral, when they had those Sunday-school kids yowling hymns round the grave? That was Mr. Crile—Christian name, Jonathan.”
“I remember; but I didn’t realize that he was a Hoxton aristocrat.”
“Well, he was. Fifty-two, Field-street was his earthly abode. I used to remember it by the number of weeks in the year. And glad enough I was when he hopped off his perch, for his confounded landlady, a Mrs. Pepper, would insist on fixing the times for my visits, and deuced inconvenient times, too. Between four and six on Tuesdays and Fridays. I hate patients who turn your visits into appointments. Upsets your whole visiting-list.”
“It seems to be the fashion in Hoxton,” I remarked. “I had to make my visits at appointed times, too. It would have been frightfully inconvenient if I had been busy. Is it often done?”
“They will always do it if you let ’em. Of course, it is a convenience to a woman who doesn’t keep a servant, to know what time the doctor is going to call; but it doesn’t do to give way to ’em.”