"Then let's go over there now and get your traps. Afterwards we can go
home together. I've got cold mutton for supper. Hope you don't
object."
"Very digestible," I remarked. And, after some persuasion, he at length
prevailed upon me to accept his hospitality.
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 second-hand 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?"
"Most certainly, old chap," I responded.
"Even though you incur a great responsibility?"
"What is the responsibility?"
"A very grave one. To take charge of this extensive practice while I go
down to Bristol and see my people. I haven't been homesick a week."
"Why, of course," I responded. "I'll look after things with pleasure."
"Thanks. You're a brick. I won't be away for more than a week. You
won't find it very laborious. There's a couple of kids with the croup
round in Angel Road, a bedridden old girl in Bridge Road, and a man in
Beadon Road who seems to have a perpetual stomach ache. That's about
all."
I smiled. He had not attempted to diagnose the stomach-ache, I
supposed. He was, indeed, a careless fellow.
"Of course you'll pocket all the fees," he added, with a touch of grim
humour. "They're not very heavy--bobs and half-crowns--but they may
keep you in tobacco till I come back."
And thus I became the _locum tenens_ of the not too extensive practice
of Robert Raymond, surgeon, for he departed for Paddington on the
following evening, and I entered upon my somewhat lonely duties.
The first couple of days passed without incident. I visited the two
children with the croup, looked in upon the bedridden relict of a
bibulous furniture-dealer, and examined the stomach with the perpetual
pain. The latter proved a much more serious case than I had supposed,
and from the first I saw that the poor fellow was suffering from an
incurable disease. My visits only took an hour, and the rest of the day
I spent in the little den upstairs, smoking furiously and reading.
On the third morning, shortly before midday, just as I was thinking of
going out to make my round of visits, an unusual incident occurred.
I heard a cab stop outside, and a moment later the surgery bell was
violently rung. I started, for that sound was synonymous with half a
crown.
A middle-aged woman, in black, evidently a domestic servant, stood in
the surgery, and, as I confronted her, asked breathlessly--
"Are you the doctor, sir?"