But you must do something. Here you are, out on a road, five miles from anywhere, with a friend lying in the road with a broken leg. What are you to do? Splint the leg. For a splint you may use an umbrella, a walking-stick, a branch of a tree, a newspaper strengthened with twigs, or anything that is handy. Place the splint against the limb, and with your own and your friend’s handkerchiefs tie the splint to the leg. Tie it with the handkerchiefs a long way above and below the broken place. Then place your friend on the floor of the conveyance and drive slowly home or to the nearest surgeon.
Upon this emergency-splinting a very great surgeon—let us call him Sir William Sawyer—tells an amusing story. He was walking along a country road, and came across a cart overturned, with one wheel broken, in the middle of the road. A man was lying near the cart. On approaching him the surgeon saw that his thigh was broken. He immediately turned out his pockets and found two old newspapers. Between these two papers he “sandwiched” a good number of twigs, and then wrapped the whole concern about the thigh of the injured man.
When he had done this, he became aware of the presence of a second man, apparently uninjured, staring at him. He therefore bade him go to the nearest village and fetch a surgeon.
When he got to the village, he went to the nearest medical man and asked him to come quickly, for “an old idiot was stuffing his mate with newspapers.” What was the medical man’s surprise to see that the “old idiot” was Sir William Sawyer!
(To be continued.)
[“OUR HERO.”]
A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.
By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.