"I couldn't do those bags," said Gardiner. "My hand's bad."
"Your hand bad! What's the matter with it?"
Barnes snatched roughly at the half-extended fingers. They were torn out of his grasp. "Damn you," said Gardiner very quietly. Even in the darkness Barnes could see his face, scarlet with sudden pain.
"I didn't mean to 'urt you," he said gruffly. "I thought you was malingering. What have you done to your 'and?"
"I don't malinger, and I haven't done anything to my hand," the prisoner retorted. His tone was short; he was still nursing his wrist and biting his lip. "But the fact remains, I can't sew. If you wouldn't mind putting me down to see the doctor, I should be much obliged. There's my ticket."
"Let's 'ave a look." Gardiner would rather have put his fist, pain and all, into the man's face; he silently extended his palm. "My word! that gives you pen and ink, I lay," said Barnes with critical interest. "I say, I'm sorry I hurt you, B14; I might 'a' known you wasn't one of the 'umbuggin' sort. I'll put you down to see the doctor, never fear."
The door banged with the complacent decision of prison doors, and Gardiner was alone. He paid for his susceptibility to pleasure by a corresponding susceptibility to pain; Barnes had actually made him feel faint. He tumbled off his stool on to the floor and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes. Well! he was in for it now. Would he be able to keep up the same virtuous docility in his interview with Scott? Lord only knew! And, thinking of Lettice, he smiled. It was she who had dictated every word.
Barnes, good little soul, was pricked with compunction for his roughness. Partly on this account, and partly because, even to his unprofessional eye, B14's hand appeared to be in a bad way, he made it his business to go to Dr. Scott as soon as he could; and Scott was equally prompt in responding. The rule for the casual sick is that they are collected in a batch from the gangs after the "cease work" bell in the morning, and shepherded to the doctor's office, where he disposes of them in turn: summary jurisdiction, a "tot" of No. Dash medicine, to be swallowed on the spot. B14, however, being in punishment, could not go to Mahomet, so Mahomet had to go to him. Half-an-hour after it had closed, Gardiner's door reopened to admit the doctor, with Barnes in attendance. A doctor never, in any circumstances, sees a prisoner alone.
Gardiner, nodding off into an uneasy doze, scrambled to his feet in a hurry.
"You wanted to see me?" said Scott in his curtest tone, because he was mortally sorry for his patient. "Got a bad hand, have you? Let's have a look."