The man broke into querulous expostulation, but Walker, pointing to a woman with a sick child in her arms, told her to bring it to his desk. He asked her questions and looked at the child.
"I will give you medicine," he said. He turned to the half-caste clerk. "Go into the dispensary and bring me some calomel pills."
He made the child swallow one there and then and gave another to the mother.
"Take the child away and keep it warm. To-morrow it will be dead or better."
He leaned back in his chair and lit his pipe.
"Wonderful stuff, calomel. I've saved more lives with it than all the hospital doctors at Apia put together."
Walker was very proud of his skill, and with the dogmatism of ignorance had no patience with the members of the medical profession.
"The sort of case I like," he said, "is the one that all the doctors have given up as hopeless. When the doctors have said they can't cure you, I say to them, 'come to me.' Did I ever tell you about the fellow who had a cancer?"
"Frequently," said Mackintosh.
"I got him right in three months."