“This is my mother,” said Aitch.
“Come along to the St. Maurice,” said Courtesy. “That’s where I am taking your babies to. Our piano there is still in its proper place.”
So they all followed the gardener.
“Somebody must go and find a doctor,” said Courtesy at the door of the St. Maurice. She looked suggestively at the priest.
But he replied, “I wash my hands of the matter, Miss Briggs. I consider this to be a judgment on that young man.”
“A judgment?” wept the mother of Aitch and Zed. “Why, what has he done?”
“He saved the lives of your babies,” replied Courtesy. “And anyway, a judgment needs a surgeon just as much as a simple fracture.”
“Yerce, yerce, only don’t ask me to help,” said the priest. “I prefer to succour those deserving of help.” And he went out into the street again. He seemed wedded to the word succour. It is a pose word, and fitted him exactly. Nothing but an earthquake could have made this worm turn. But the effect of the disaster on the priest was an obstinate certainty that there was a Jonah in the case, and that, as heaven was never to blame, the wicked were entirely responsible.
“Oh, Lor’,” said Courtesy. “I’ll have to go for a surgeon myself.”
“I’ll go with you,” cried the mother of Aitch and Zed, whose name, for the sake of brevity, was Mrs. Tring. “I don’t know what has become of my Dally” (who was her husband).