"Glad to hear you say so, Crumpton! It sounds hopeful."
"I didn't mean that way. I meant he might have been an interesting case. Anyhow, there's an end of him!"
"I wish I could think that. But suppose I tell you what brings me here now: we can quarrel about the human soul after. I want to hear about a man that was brought in yesterday night, a blind sailor-beggar that was run over. Have you seen him?"
"Rather! I helped to get his leg off, just above the knee. A very good case—a very good case!"
"What does that mean!—a very good case?"
"Means that if the limb hadn't been taken off on the nail, septic poisoning might have set in—yes!—already!—By the merest chance Brantock was here when he was brought in—he's our visiting surgeon, you know—and he operated immediately.... Save it? Not a chance—arteries all torn—circulation stopped—nothing for it but the knife! The other leg we may save. He has a splendid constitution. Couldn't have kept him so long under chloroform else."
"The other leg?"
"Compound comminuted fracture of tibia and fibula, with extensive laceration of soft parts. Much extravasation. But vitality retained. Oh yes!—we may save that one. It's in plaster of Paris. He was removed into the surgical ward an hour ago. Do you want to see him?—he can't talk, I fancy, and he'd better not try. He's had a good deal of opium to allay pain, you see."
"May I see him? I should like to say I have to his little girl. Poor child! The delirium tremens case was her uncle, and she has no mother. She's the poor chap's only child."
The House Surgeon put a book he had been looking into as he talked, inside a desk and locked it; wrote with extreme rapidity on half a sheet of note-paper as people write on the stage; handed it to a chubby nurse who seemed to have been indulging optimism while waiting for it; remarked to her, "That's three hundred and forty-nine. I'll see about the other presently;" and said to the Rev. Athelstan, briefly, "Come along!"