I was passing on
my way to see a poor labourer with typhoid. You may
believe that I saw my chance, bustled in, treated the
man, conciliated the wife, tickled the child, and gained
over the whole household. He had these attacks
periodically, and made an arrangement with me by which I
was to deal with him, and we were to balance bills
against each other. It was a ghoulish compact, by which
a fit to him meant butter and bacon to me, while a spell
of health for Haywood sent me back to dry bread and
saveloys. However, it enabled me to put by for the rent
many a shilling which must otherwise have gone in food.
At last, however, the poor fellow died, and there was our
final settlement.
Two small accidents occurred near my door (it was a
busy crossing), and though I got little enough from
either of them, I ran down to the newspaper office on
each occasion, and had the gratification of seeing in the
evening edition that "the driver, though much shaken, is
pronounced by Dr. Stark Munro, of Oakley Villa, to
have suffered no serious injury." As Cullingworth used
to say, it is hard enough for the young doctor to push
his name into any publicity, and he must take what little
chances he has. Perhaps the fathers of the profession
would shake their heads over such a proceeding in a
little provincial journal; but I was never able to see
that any of them were very averse from seeing their own
names appended to the bulletin of some sick statesman in
The Times.
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