“No—thanks.”
“Be easy on the bandages,” and Dr. Tugler gave a frowning wink; “we can’t do the beggars à la West End on a bob a time.”
The big man nodded, and began to clean his knives.
“A message has just come round from Cinder Lane, No. 10. Primip. Glad if you’d see to it. I feel dead fagged myself.”
An almost imperceptible sigh and a slight deepening of the lines about Murchison’s mouth escaped Dr. Tugler’s notice.
“I will start as soon as I have cleaned these instruments. No. 10, is it?”
“Yes. Here’s the week’s cash.”
Dr. Tugler rapped down three sovereigns and three shillings on the dresser, and turning into the dispensary, busied himself by inspecting the contents of the bottles with the critical eye of a man who realizes that details decide the difference between profit and loss.
In ten minutes Murchison had taken off his white cotton coat, pocketed his money, put on a blue serge jacket and overcoat, and taken a rather shabby bowler from the peg on the surgery door. He picked up an obstetric bag from under the dresser, and crossing the outer room with a curt “good-night” to his fellow-assistant, plunged into the glare and drizzle of Wilton High Street.
Despite the rain, the sidewalks were crowded with Saturday-night bargainers who loitered round the stalls under the flaring naphtha lamps. The strident voices of the salesmen mingled with the clangor of the passing teams and the plaintive whining of the overhead wires. Here and there the glare from a public-house streamed across the pavement, and through the swing-doors, Murchison, as he passed, had a glimpse of the gaudy fittings, the glittering glasses, the rows of bottles set out like lures to catch the eye. The bars were crowded with men and women, the discordant hubbub of their voices striking out like the waters of a mill-race into the more even murmur of the streets.