He had established himself, I found, in the Rowan Road—a turning off the Hammersmith Road—in an ordinary-looking, ten-roomed house: one of those stereotyped ones with four hearth-stoned steps leading to the front door, and a couple of yards of unhealthy-looking, ill-kept grass between the bay window and the iron railings.
The interior was comfortably furnished, for Bob was not wholly dependent upon his practice. His people were brewers at Bristol, and his allowance was ample. The dining-room was in front, while the room behind it was converted into a surgery with the regulation invalid’s couch, a case of secondhand books to lend the place an imposing air, and a small writing-table whereat my hospital chum wrote his rather erratic ordinances.
Bob was a good fellow, and I spent a pleasant time with him. Old Mrs Bishop, his housekeeper, made me comfortable, and the whole day long my host would keep me laughing at his droll witticisms.
Patients, however, were very few and far between.
“You see, I’m like the men in Harley Street, my dear old chap,” he observed one day, “I’m only consulted as a last resource.”
I did not feel quite comfortable in accepting his hospitality for more than a week; but when I announced my intention of departing he would not hear of it, and therefore I remained, each week eager for the publication of the Lancet with its lists of assistants wanted.
I had been with him three weeks, and assisted him in his extremely small practice, for he sometimes sought my advice as to treatment. Poor old Bob! he was never a very brilliant one in his diagnoses. He always made it a rule to sound everybody, feel their pulses, press down their tongues and make them say, “Ah?”
“Must do something for your money,” he would say when the patient had gone. “They like to be looked at in the mouth.”
One afternoon, while we were sitting together smoking in his little den above the surgery, he made a sudden suggestion.
“Do you know, Dick—I scarcely like to ask you—but I wonder whether you’d do me a favour?”