"Pray step in,
madam," said I, in quite my most courtly style; and in
they all came--the husband, the brother, the wife and the
baby. The latter was in the early stage of measles.
They were poor outcast sort of people, and seemed not to
have sixpence among them; so my demands for a fee at the
end of the consultation ended first in my giving the
medicine for nothing, and finally adding fivepence in
coppers, which was all the small change I had. A few
more such patients and I am a broken man.
However, the two incidents together had the effect of
taking up my attention and breaking the blow which I had
had in the Cullingworth letter. It made me laugh to
think that the apparent outsider should prove to be a
patient, and the apparent patient an outsider. So back
I went, in a much more judicial frame of mind, to read
that precious document over again, and to make up my mind
what it was that I should do.
And now I came to my first real insight into the
depths which lie in the character of Cullingworth. I
began by trying to recall how I could have torn up my
mother's letters, for it is not usual for me to destroy
papers in this manner. I have often been chaffed about
the way in which I allow them to accumulate until my
pockets become unbearable. The more I thought about it
the more convinced I was that I could not have done
anything of the sort; so finally I got out the little
house jacket which I had usually worn at Bradfield, and
I examined the sheaves of letters which it
contained.
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