Part 7

"What I require, old girl," said Doctor Brink, rising slowly to his feet, "is a job in the City. I want to try a new system of exploitation. My game's too deadly simple: I'm tired of pumping aniline dye and water into hungry bellies for a thousand a year. I'm tired of the filthy working-man--tired of seeing him so close. He smells of beer, and his hands are so cold. His eyes are awful, and they give me nightmares.... I want to kill the cad more profitably. I want to start a trouser-button works, or some chutney mills, or something. I can't stand it any longer--this deadly boredom: this watching the dumb beast die."

"Well," said Aunt Isobel, "I can seriously recommend you to pin your faith to Anti-Nervo. You take two tablets three times daily."

*XX*

*MILK*

I have long been interested in Mr. Binney. He is the only milkman I have ever seen who looks any different from other milkmen. His very voice is different; for, whereas other milkmen are sudden and shrill of utterance, Mr. Binney has cultivated a profounder, more scholarly method, and he has a voice of deep bass quality.

I have sat at an upper window of the Bovingdon Street dispensary and watched this tradesman closely when he has been conducting milkcans to the houses opposite. I have observed his slow, deliberate tread, so thoroughly in keeping with the fulness of his girth and stature. I have noted his extensive face, so plain and wise and red. I have remarked his drooping eyelid and crimson neck, his scant white locks, and row upon row of chins--features insignificant in themselves, but, when combined, imparting to his countenance a strangely judicial character.

This effect of power (such is the individuality of the man) receives additional strength even from the trivial business of his calling. Mr. Binney, when handing a milkcan through some parlour window, looks less like a milkman than any other imaginable human thing. He handles the pewter vessel gingerly, daintily, as if it were a precious casket, and a sort of trembling eagerness is sometimes to be observed in his demeanour.

There is nothing commercial in Mr. Binney's manner.

He does not seem to sell his milk. He bestows it.

To see him gingerly proffering his battered cans is to see, as it were, an earthly Providence--a conscious benefactor, distributing Nature's bounty to her helpless children.

He accepts the copper tokens which reward his ministrations with an air of gracious calm as far removed from any taint of barter as are his actions. You might suppose him to be a priest receiving offertory.

The same spirit of gentleness distinguishes his method of proclamation. Mr. Binney does not use the cry of "Milk-ho!" which his fellow-milkmen favour. I have already stated that the tone of his voice is deeper and more profound than that which they employ. Pushing his little handcart before him, he causes his utterance to correspond with his gait--which is majestic.

"Milk! milk! _milk!_" he exclaims--or, rather, utters--in a tone which is at once appealing and authoritative.

Mr. Binney so interested me that I reported him to the doctor. "What is the mystery of this unusual milkman?" I said. But the doctor only smiled.

A day or two afterwards, however, when I was seated in anxious expectancy at the upper window, Doctor Brink came up and brought me my answer. "Waiting for your milkman?" he said.... "Ha! I've just been sent for to him. Come round with me now and see him in his little home.... I shall want some help."

As we walked along, the doctor carried his explanation a little further. "We shall have to take his clothes off," he observed. "If once we can get him undressed he's fixed for a week, because he cannot hold things steady, and he's fat, and his trousers are tight, and--oh, here we are."

A perfectly quiet and collected old lady received us on the doorstep. "He's cut 'isself this time," she announced; "fell agin the railings by the church. But he's very jolly and 'igh-sperited, Doctor, and I'm sure the sewing won't be any trouble to you. Is this your assistant?"

The doctor nodded. "Where is he?" he demanded.

"In 'is own old armchair," replied the woman. "Per'aps you'll get 'is clothes off, Doctor. It's on'y the trousers that matter. They'll puzzle 'im till Sunday _this_ time, they will."

We found Mr. Binney in the situation reported. He received us with cheers and a poetic outburst.

"Dr. Brink, Full of chink, I _don't_ think"--

he exclaimed; adding a personal couplet--

"I'm old Binney, Not so damned skinny."

"Doctor," he continued, "'ave a drink?" Upon the doctor declining this offer, Mr. Binney chuckled loudly and extended--or tried to extend--an arm. "Feel me pulse, old buck," he shouted. "Let's see if you know yere business. If ye can feel old Binney's pulse I'll give you 'arf a dollar, 'cause I'll be damned if ole Binney kin feel it 'isself."

"Loss of feeling, eh?" said the doctor, in his suavest tone. "Ha! you'll feel _this_ all right." With which words he inserted a surgical needle in Mr. Binney's cheek.

"Oy!" cried Mr. Binney, "keep orf the grarse!"

But the doctor continued to ply his busy thread, and Mr. Binney, being temporarily incapable of performing any but the most elementary movements, was constrained to endure this treatment. When the doctor had completed it--Mr. Binney having several times admonished him to "keep orf the grarse!"--and we had removed that garment which exerted such a powerful influence upon the question of Mr. Binney's freedom, that gentleman once more expressed himself in verse, saying--

"Doctor Brink, Tip 'im the wink, Give 'im a drink, I don't think. Put 'im in clink, Tiddely-wink, Tiddely-wink, Give 'im a drink. Give 'im a----

Good-bye, old pal, an' come agin termorrer."

We went again upon the morrow, and Binney expressed himself as being glad to see us.

"I dunno 'oo your soft-lookin' friend may be," said Mr. Binney, "but I know 'oo you are, Doctor, an' you done me a power o' good, an' I'm grateful to you. Gettin' on fine, I am."

"That's _right_," exclaimed the doctor, looking as if he believed it. "Keeping off the drink, of course, as I advised you?"

"Keepin' orf tadpoles!" cried Mr. Binney, with disdain. "I've 'ad five brandies auready this mornin', an' not you, nor the ole woman, nor the King 'isself would stop me. I know the cure for _my_ complaint."

The next morning Dr. Brink paid his third and last visit to this patient. The patient willed it so, having reconstructed the frame of his mind.

"Look 'ere, me man," said Mr. Binney upon this occasion, "I'm grateful for what you done for me, and so on. See? But I've 'ad enough of you. See? I'm very much obliged to you, and all that; but I don't want you. I'm better now. I'm all right now. _I_ don't want no blinkin' doctors. See what I mean? You're a clever fellow, no doubt, and I quite agree, and you 'ave my thanks. But you can 'op it. See?"

Dr. Brink accordingly hopped it. But that his treatment had not been wholly useless was testified by Mrs. Binney, who, when calling in that evening for some more dark brown, announced, with a sigh of satisfaction, that "'is trembles" was as bad as ever. "It'll be another week 'fore ever 'e can put them trousers on," she cried triumphantly.

That was a week ago. This very day has witnessed Mr. Binney's return to public life--properly habited and full of dignity.

I have been watching him, as, with his finest and most benevolent air, he bestowed a can of wholesome, grass-fed nourishment upon one of the numerous Barnstein children, who live opposite.

His hands, I thought, showed signs of more than usual eagerness as he hooked a trembling finger round the handle of the can. There was an expression as of reverence upon his face, and he yielded the liquid into Miss Barnstein's keeping with a hesitancy, as of one loth to part from his treasure.

His lips moved, and I could almost have believed that he had breathed a blessing--a Latin blessing. Then I heard him speak--in deep, impressive tones he spake.

"Be careful with it, missy," he said. "If you spill some, what'll mother say? Now do be careful!"

With that he returned to his little hand-cart and pushed it slowly up the road, walking with a measured gait and uttering, in rich and reverent tones, his exhortation:--

"Milk! Milk! _Milk!_"

*XXI*

*TWO PATIENTS*

My friend, Mrs. Isadore Muntz, has been very ill, poor girl.

She is always rather ill, of course; there would not otherwise be much point in being married to so rich and elderly a man as Isadore. But the illness which I now have to record was a real one--a horrid one. It involved the use of a surgeon's knife. It involved the complete collapse of Isadore, whose world-famous bill-brokery was carried on without the stimulus of his presence for nearly fourteen days.

For more than seven days of that period, it is said, he kept to his chamber, and cried without ceasing. And he admitted, between his sobs, to my aunt Elizabeth, that Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's fee for the operation had amounted to a hundred guineas, besides an additional charge of twenty guineas for the anaesthetist.

But Mrs. Isadore--Constance she used to let me call her--is getting slowly better. Because she used to let me call her Constance and because--because I am sorry for her, I went to the "At Home," which was held at West Hampstead, in order--I suppose--to celebrate the result of Sir Marmaduke Wilkins's efforts.

Less than eight weeks having elapsed since the occasion of Sir Marmaduke's skilful treatment, she was still forbidden to be very active. So she lay on a sofa, embowered with blossoms, and we rustled up and cried over her. Isadore, the faithful creature, stood fast by her right hand. This was perhaps responsible for Constance's notable depression.

It is also possible that she thought of all those low-necked gowns hanging useless on their pegs upstairs.

"You don't mean to say _you've_ come!" Constance exclaimed when I took her hand; "I thought you hated Hampstead."

"And so I do," replied the tactful guest. "But I heard a funny story yesterday, and----"

"That's all right," she said. "I'm sick of funny stories. Tell me something tragic. Haven't you fallen in love lately?"

"Yes," I said, "and I've bought another dog."

"Tell me about the dog," she said.

So I described the dog for nearly twenty minutes, much to the enragement of many mourners, who were waiting for an audience. When the laws of decency compelled me to retreat, she was so kind as to ask me to convey a form of greeting to the new dog.

"I will come and see him one day," she said. "But they won't let me move for weeks yet, and when they do I've got to go to Bournemouth and be wheeled about in a bath-chair. Isn't it horrid?"

"It is," I admitted, and I turned away to meet the cod-fish eye and collected expression of Sir Marmaduke Wilkins, M.R.C.S. That scientist was eating an ice with relish.

* * * * *

You may wonder what connection I trace between this episode and the life of Bovingdon Street. There is a connection; but it traced itself. I left the Muntz's stately mansion feeling in need of distraction, and that distraction I sought from Doctor Brink and James. And James was full of news.

"I've begun my professional education," she said. "I administered chloroform to a case last week. Fee sixpence. Fatty still owes it me."

I turned to Fatty for his explanations.

"Pity me," said that gentleman, "I have a hussy for a daughter. One who makes sport of her poor old father's need. I do owe her the money. I shall continue to owe it. I am entitled to owe it. I only got half-a-crown for the whole thing--anaesthetist's fee included.

"Men like Marmaduke Wilkins get a hundred guineas for the same operation. And then the patient has to pay another ten or twenty for the anaesthetist. When a high-class, if modest surgeon, like myself, consents to perform these things for a wage which would offend the dignity of a dustman, why, damme, it is his _duty_ to swindle the anaesthetist. Why----"

"What was your patient?" I asked.

"The patient? Oh, a girl in Mulberry Street. Works at the pickle factory. Pretty girl, only eighteen. James cried. Rather unprofessional, what? Now she has the cheek to ask for sixpence!"

"What was--er--the result of your high-class surgery? Is the girl alive?"

"Alive! Why, my insulting young friend, she's back again at the pickle works. Went to work on the sixth day. _My_ girls don't die."

"At work again in six days--after--after _that_! And you let her!"

"Better work than starve," said the doctor brusquely.... "How did you enjoy yourself at Hampstead this afternoon?"

*XXII*

*LOST!*

It isn't often that Dr. Brink permits himself to have emotions during business hours, but even the doctor looked astonished when O'Flannigan came into his consulting-room. We called him O'Flannigan, because he did not leave a visiting-card, and we had to call him _something_. And he spoke with a trace of the Irish accent. He was a very tall man and very stout, having dead-white hair, which he wore in curls, and a very red face. His clothes were all of them black, and they shone in places with a sort of oily lustre. He wore black gloves and a black tie, and he carried a black umbrella.

"Evenin', Doctorrr," said he; "ut's a fine place ye got hearrr!"

The doctor bowed.

"Ut is a fine place," repeated the visitor, tapping the oilcloth with his umbrella point; "but, begad, 'tis a mericle how you kin do ut. Privut inkum purrhaps?"

"Why, yes," acknowledged Dr. Brink, "my income is certainly a private matter."

"The divil ut is!" commented the visitor. "Me own's so damned privut Oi've lost sight of ut this ten yeers past. Midwifery connection is good, Oi onderstand. Ut's a sound, domestic practus, Doctorrr?"

The doctor nodded. Wonder had made him speechless.

"That's good now," ejaculated the visitor, holding tight to the mantelpiece as he fished with his umbrella for a chair. "Give me a sound domestic practus. It's these damned Alcoholics and so forth which Oi deprecate, Doctorrr. They're no use to a man. They nevorrr pay up, they nevorrr git bettorrr, and, be jabers, they nevorrr damned well die. Ye put the takuns at three hunderrrd, Doctorrr? Begad, 'tis a poor inkum. Faith, Oi've known a man do bettorrr cuttin' corns. 'Tis a cash trade, is ut not, Doctorrr?"

"It is," said Dr. Brink. "What can I do for you?"

"Do for me?" echoed the visitor. "Whoi, if tis a drink yure profferin' me, Doctorrr, Oi will name the ush'll. Three hunderrrd, eh? Begad, 'tis a paltry inkum--a damned dirrrty, snivelling sneakin' wasp-waisted inkum for a gentleman to live upon. But 'tis a cash trade, to be shure, and there's no anxiety, to be shure. If they die, why, dammit, they die. You take yure thruppence and they take their chance. A veterinary trade, in fact, Doctorrr. Do ye walk yure rounds, Doctorrr?"

"Cab 'em," snapped out Dr. Brink.

The visitor held on to the mantelpiece with both hands. "Holy Motherrr!" he cried. "A cab is ut, ye say? On three hunderrrd? And Oi been surgeon-majorrr in th' Army! Whoi, begad, Doctorrr, I have known the toimes when half a dozen of us in th' Eightieth could drink yure cab away at a sittin'. Cab did Oi say? Be the grace of Heaven, there was gentlemen with us would dispose of a pair-horse brougham in the same period. Cab? To the divil with cabs. Oi must stump ut. Stump ut on me ten old toes. Meself, moind ye--a retired surgeon-majorrr of her late Majesty's Army. And me over sixty, Doctorrr! It is thus that Britain treats her warriors. Begad, they've even stole me pension from me. When do Oi take overr, Doctorrr?"

"Take over what?"

"Why, dammit, man," began the visitor, but his flush of anger suddenly died down. A look of bewilderment took its place. "Will ye pardon me, Doctorrr," said the visitor slowly, in a voice which sounded husky. "But tell me am Oi roight in assuming that I was privileged to meet ye hearrr lost noight?"

The doctor shook his head.

"Then," cried the visitor, moved this time by an evidently powerful emotion, "then tell me, man, for God's sake, tell me, is this not the practus I bought from ye last noight?"

"You certainly haven't bought _this_ practice," responded Dr. Brink. "It isn't for sale."

"Begad," mused the visitor, slowly rubbing his chin, "begad, Oi might have known as much. It is a fine place ye have hearrr. Ye wouldn't be for sellin' ut. Not be any means. 'Tis a fine place and a fine practus. Indeed you would be foolish to part with ut, Doctorrr. At any rate, for the sum Oi paid ye yesterday. But, begad, Oi never paid ut ye. Indeed I didn't. Was I so drunk then? Oi doubt ut.

"Hearrr am Oi, an honest, Christian man, a professor of the healun art, the noblest art which---- Begad, Oi _know_ Oi paid ut ye. And be jabers, hearrr's--hearrr's the front-door key--yure front-door key--his, Oi should say, Doctorrr, which he gave me when Oi, when Oi----

"For the love of Hiven, Doctorrr, tell me--tell me truly, Doctorrr, where in Satan's name is the dirty little practus which I bought and paid for yesterday?"

*XXIII*

*THE SURVIVOR*

Everybody must still remember the sensational explosion at Stoat's cordite factory in Limehouse. It was quite the talk of last year's gooseberry season. I may remind you that one departmental manager, one bookkeeper, one lady typist, and eighteen hands were utterly and instantaneously atomised; that the managing director himself sustained a shock; and that more than seventy operatives had to be removed in ambulances at the company's expense.

It will be remembered that very High Personages sent telegrams of sympathy. A sum of money was publicly subscribed for the relief and burial of the sufferers. The great heart of England was touched, though it did not leave off beating.

But those whose recollection of that horrible, soul-thrilling catastrophe is as keen as mine will remember that, viewed from the broad and enlightened standpoint of news-value, its most important feature was Mr. John Boyle. This honest artisan went up with the gentleman book-keeper and the lady typist and the hands. But unlike them he came down unbroken and almost unhurt, being so fortunate as to alight upon a providential mound of cotton-waste.

Few people will need to be reminded how this clever action was rewarded. A special (_D---- M----_) collection, amounting to nearly L300, was raised in three weeks and presented to Mr. Boyle in recognition of his courage and ingenuity. Pictures of Mr. Boyle in all varieties of dress, attitude, and employment were published in the journals. I have an especially vivid recollection of one picture, appearing in a Sunday newspaper. The photographer had caught the noteworthy features of Mr. Boyle at a particularly happy moment; and with consummate art he had represented our hero as emerging from a bad fog with a patch on his chest. This study bore the following inscription: "John Boyle at Home: He nurses the baby."

The next stage in Mr. Boyle's development, or (to state it more correctly) in the development of the public attitude towards Mr. Boyle, was his engagement to appear at the Shoreditch Hippodrome in a dramatic entertainment called "The Man Who was Blown Up."

But by the time he had reached this altitude of greatness the fame of Mr. Boyle was already well established; his name had become familiar to the national ear. For months before the day of Mr. Boyle's historic decision to blend his destiny with that of the national drama it had been a common thing to hear men say to other men: "'Ullo, Charlie; been 'avin' one with Boyle?"

This oft-repeated sally, which never failed to provoke laughter, was popularly supposed to embody a charge of alcoholic excess.

In these days, when Mr. Boyle as "The Man Who was Blown Up" has enjoyed three hundred consecutive nights of fame, it is regarded as a silly thing to joke about him. He is now a solemn National fact.

But it was my own particular good fortune to meet Mr. Boyle at a period when the hand of Fame had barely touched him. I made his acquaintance within twenty-four hours after the tremendous moment which had so exalted Mr. Boyle and his fortunes.

Mr. Boyle, having been detained for a brief period at a local infirmary, was anointed with surgical balm and dismissed; when he immediately came round to the sixpenny surgery of Dr. Brink, demanding a certificate of injuries which should enable him to extract some monetary compensation from the coffers of Stoat's Cordite Works, Limited. Mr. Boyle was not then prognostic of the public rewards which awaited him.

Mr. Boyle having stated his business, the doctor became excited and summoned me to leave the hiding-place and join him openly in the consulting-room.

"This chap," he explained, "is John Boyle, who was blown up with other employed objects at the cordite works, and who is still alive. If you are a real journalist you will get 'copy' out of him."

I took Mr. Boyle by the hand and I said to him--

"You have had an awful experience, old chap. My God, you have lived through an awful thing."

Mr. Boyle said: "I believe you, guv'nor. Now this is a funny thing, ain't it. I was 'it on the leg by somethink; and whatever it was, it went right through me trouser but never 'urt the sock. Funny thing, that, ain't it?"

"Quite extraordinary," I admitted. "All the other poor chaps in your shop are dead, aren't they?"

"Twelve chaps and four females; all dead," admitted Mr. Boyle. "Funny thing, wasn't it? Right through me trouser and never touched the sock!"

"Eighty injured from the other shops!" I reflected. "What did you think--how did you feel, when--when you realised it all?"

"I never thought much abaht it," responded Mr. Boyle. "Me leg was 'urtin'."

"It isn't a matter one need encourage him to think about," suggested the doctor.

"I can't 'elp thinking about one thing, though," interpolated Mr. Boyle. "Such a funny thing: Right through----"

"It must have been an awful moment," I hazarded, "when you came to your senses and looked about and saw the--the awfulness of it. What did you do?"

"I don't remember, not clearly," responded Mr. Boyle.... "I know I laughed. It seemed so queer for anything to rip right through a person's trouser-leg and not go near 'is sock."

*XXIV*

*MORE OF PRUDENCE*

Prudence and midday post arrived together at Baffin's washhouse on the day appointed for her second stance.

"Oo-er, Mr. Baffin," was her greeting: "_I_ got your letters. Gimme the stamps, wown't you? Me an' my friend we allus c'lect stamps. We ain't gointer stop till we got ten thousand, and then we're gointer make a bonfire when my mother's out. 'Ere, an' I ain't bin 'avin' _'arf_ a lark with your postman, Mr. Baffin. Oo, an' the conductor on the bus what I come by, 'e wasn't 'arf drunk, I tell you. I was frightened, I was, 'cos my father useder git drunk, an' once 'e bit my mother. 'E _was_ a bad man, my father, an' they made 'im go out an' be a soldier in Egypt, an' 'e got the fever in 'is 'ead, an' we got a picture of 'im at 'ome before 'e was buried, an' you ought to see the funny black man a-settin' alongside of 'im. 'Ere, I'm all in a knot at the back, Mr. Baffin: arst your friend to undo me. An' don't you foget to keep them stamps, an' I spoge it's the chin agen, an' I 'ope you've remembered the muffins!"

"Yes," responded Baffin, "I remembered to get the muffins, and I've also remembered to get an empty flour-sack. Know what that's for?"

Prudence shook her head--gravely, wonderingly.

"To smother up tiresome girls in that _will_ wriggle and _will_ talk," explained Baffin.

"He! he!" giggled Prudence. "Wown't tie up _me_, I know. 'Cos if you was to do that you couldn't paint me. See?" She gurgled with triumph.