“Our old friend, diphtheria; knowing young dog, to put it off till breaking-up day. What an upset for us all if he’d come out with it yesterday! Not profitable from my point of view, but I daresay the boys will have it more comfortably at home than here, after all. This must have been coming on for some time. How long has he been feverish?”
“I don’t know. I only found him like this half an hour ago, and want your advice what to do.”
The doctor, almost for the first time, looked at the restless invalid on the bed and hummed.
“Dr Ponsford has gone to the Isle of Wight, I hear,” said he.
“I really don’t know where he’s gone,” said Railsford impatiently.
“I wish I could get a holiday. That’s the worst of my kind of doctor—people take ill so promiscuously. As sure as we say we’ll go off for a week, some aggravating patient spits blood and says, ‘No, you don’t.’ I think you should send for this boy’s mother, do you know.”
“I don’t know her address. Is he so very ill, then?”
“Well, of the two, I think you should telegraph rather than write. It might be more satisfaction to you afterwards. Have you no way of finding where he lives? Looked in his pockets? There may be a letter there.”
It was not an occasion for standing on ceremony, and Railsford, feeling rather like a pickpocket, took down the jacket from the peg and searched it. There was only one letter in the pocket, written in a female hand. It was dated “Sunday,” but bore no address further than “London, N.” on the postmark.
“Pity,” said the doctor pleasantly. “Of course you have had diphtheria yourself?”