"I am master of this house," said the ruined manufacturer, who, generally so mild and retiring, now spoke with unfaltering firmness, "and I say that no man shall be insulted to his face under my roof. You will oblige me, Mr Cleave, by not reading another word of that report. Frank, go and see if dinner is ready."
CHAPTER X.
AT THE SURGERY.
Jim set out for the surgery next morning feeling somewhat depressed. His sins were coming home to him. The attitude adopted towards him generally by No. 9 was a hostile one. After the sad disclosures on the previous evening, Miss Bird and Mr Cleave had, metaphorically, turned their backs on him; Mrs Maybury was coldly polite; Miss H. R. Maybury (a thin, angular young lady) barely recognised his presence; and, on the whole, Jim would have spent a most chilly evening had not Mr Maybury invited him to play chess.
"Seems to me," said Jim, as he left Derby Crescent, "I'm not in good odour there. Shall I leave or shall I live it down? I should like to leave, but--hullo!"
This exclamation was caused by the hitherto unnoticed presence of Tom, the great black cat, who had quietly followed Jim out of the Crescent into the main road, and seemed bent on accompanying the young doctor to his destination. Jim endeavoured to make the cat go back, but Tom persisted in accompanying him, and so at length the two reached Mount Street, where Dr Taplow's surgery was situated.
On the pavement by the surgery door a group of meanly clad people were already waiting for "the Doctor." The women--they were all women or children--gazed with interest on the Long 'Un. He was a man most people looked at twice, and to these poor souls he was of peculiar interest, for he was to minister to their ills. And who--in times of sickness--is of greater interest to one than the man who possesses the skill to make one well again?
"Waiting to see me?" said Jim, cheerily, "All right--you may come in in a moment."
Scouring the passage that lay on the other side of the door was a hag of forbidding appearance.
"I am Mr Mortimer," said Jim, in reply to her stare of inquiry. "I have come to take charge of the practice."