Chapter XXXI In Which It Is Shown That the Bearded — Man Had Made Another Mistake
Mr Evans Evans, of the red hair, and Mr Deadwood, the truculent and filibustering, having recently (after an eight or nine years’ struggle) obtained their qualification, accepted Dr Mortimer’s invitation with alacrity. Yes—certainly they would look after the Long ’Un’s practice. Only too pleased. Start at once and share proceeds? Right O!
They were both capable men, and so they found it quite within their power to cope with the work in Mount Street and its environments. True, Mr Evans did the brunt of the work, but Mr Deadwood had his uses.
For, taking into consideration the manner in which the Long ’Un and his predecessor had been handled by the Hooligans of the neighbourhood, Mr Deadwood, after due thought, decided that the thing was to take a strong line with such roughs as might assume a hostile, or even an impertinent, attitude towards himself and his colleague. There were still a good many Hooligans about, and the colour of Mr Evans’s hair provoked a variety of rude jests from a group of them on the afternoon of the day Messrs Evans and Deadwood started operations in this district.
The first guffaw had hardly sounded out upon the raw February air when Mr Evans smote the nearest humorist on his nose, and Mr Deadwood knocked the principal guffawer’s head against the wall that was supporting his idle form. The other Hooligans objecting to this species of rebuke, a spirited free fight was soon in progress. But, after Covent Garden porters, Mr Deadwood found the weedy louts of Mount Street comparatively mild customers to tackle, and he laid about him with such energy that the group of Hooligans soon decamped with many oaths and much gnashing of such teeth as Jim’s deputy had left in their gums.
In brief, Mr Deadwood, who had been a scrapper from his birth, and who had only been knocked out in fair fight once in his life—his opponent on that occasion being James Mortimer—established what is called a “funk” in Mount Street, for, after his primary bout with the Hooligans, the mere sight of his great shoulders and bull-dog jaw caused such law-breaking vagabonds as he might meet in the course of his rounds to slink off rapidly down dark alleys and tortuous byways in order to avoid him.
“The fact is,” said Mr Deadwood one day, “Jim was much too gentle with these chaps. He didn’t hurt ’em enough. By George! when I think how he was served, I feel inclined to go for every pub-propper-up I meet.”
And indeed, Mr Deadwood’s countenance wore such a pugilistic expression whenever he walked abroad—which was a good many times daily—that the local Hooligans began to decamp to less perilous quarters, and Mount Street in time came to be quite a respectable thoroughfare for those parts.
Occasionally Messrs Evans and Deadwood, having finished their day’s work, would go to see Jim. The little Scottish nurse took care that they did not talk very much, and so the partners found their visits to No. 9 hardly what one would call lively excursions, though it is true they took a certain pleasure in calling there, for Mr Evans quickly came to the conclusion that the trained nurse was “a nice little thing,” while Mr Deadwood, after talking to Dora, would fall into a strangely sentimental and melancholy mood. A few pints of bitter ale, however, served to dispel his gloom in the long run, and then he would hie forth and search for Hooligans, and the latter had a bad time if he happened to find them.
One evening, when the partners called at No. 9, they were told that they couldn’t see Jim, as Dr Trefusis and Sir Savile Smart were with him. Mr Evans therefore challenged Miss Bird to a game of draughts, and Mr Deadwood favoured Dora and Frank with a lurid account of the various battles he had fought during his hospital career. It was not an improving discourse, and as a consequence of it Frank came home the next day with a black eye, the result of having engaged a much larger boy than himself in fistic combat.
The outcome of the specialists’ conversation with Messrs Evans and Deadwood, after a rigorous examination of Jim’s injuries, was that Mr Deadwood called on the bearded man when the latter was discussing tea and crumpets on the following afternoon.
“Oh, how do you do?” said the bearded man rather stiffly, as he rose from the table.
He had observed the arrival of the partners in Mount Street with some misgivings, for he recognised them as members of the Matt’s band that laid waste his surgery. He did not go out of his way to renew his acquaintance with them, and trusted they would not take the initiative in that respect. However, in view of the ferocious character his patients had given Mr Deadwood, he thought it would be as well to be polite to him.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” said Mr Deadwood; “I have only dropped in to tell you, in the plainest way the mind of man is capable of conceiving, that you are an ass!”
“What reason have you for saying this?” demanded the bearded man, coldly.
“In the sublimity of your ignorance,” explained Mr Deadwood, “added to your coruscatingly conceited idea that you know anything whatever about the human frame, you informed a sporting gentleman of my acquaintance that Jim Mortimer would only last twenty-four hours.”
“Yes,” said the bearded man, “I said that, and I meant it. Is he still alive?”
“Man, man!” exclaimed Mr Deadwood, “it hurts me to think that you come from Matt’s—a place that has bred many eminent surgeons, including myself and my friend of the carmine tresses.”
“Is Mortimer still alive, then?” reiterated the bearded man.
“He is so alive,” returned Mr Deadwood, “that Trefusis says he will be playing cricket in June! Wherefore, what price your diagnosis of his hurts, my whiskered fakir?”
“I am surprised to hear it,” said he of the beard.
“Of course you are,” exclaimed Mr Deadwood, “and why? Because you are an ass. Sir, you ought to take a job on an Australian liner. You would find little to do except consume meals and inhale ozone. Going out, possibly there would be a few sick infants, and a gentleman afflicted with what is politely called the ‘drink habit’! You would help the latter on his way to a watery grave, and no one would mind. Coming home, you might pick up a soldier from Egypt with dog-bite, bound for the Pasteur Institute. You would cut off his leg and think you had cured him. So why not get a liner job, my hairy false prophet?”
“Please moderate your language!” exclaimed the bearded man, shortly.
“Tut! tut! Go to!” replied Mr Deadwood; “I am only giving you these hints for your good. You ought not to doctor human beings, bar pirates or Esquimaux. Why not turn vet. and specialise in elephants? They take a lot of killing.”
“I think you are very rude,” protested the bearded man.
“Pulling out horses’ teeth isn’t a bad-paying business, either,” continued Mr Deadwood. “You use forceps about as large as tongs. They would just suit your delicate touch.”
“Everybody is liable to make mistakes,” pleaded the bearded one.
“But when a man practising medicine makes the mistakes you do,” returned Mr Deadwood, “he had better set up at once as secret agent—on a liberal salary—to a necropolis company.”
But the bearded man was only half-listening to his visitor.
“I can’t understand it,” he muttered; “he was frightfully injured.”
“But he’s frightfully tough,” rejoined Deadwood: “footer, rowing, cricket—all good for the spine. He’ll get well! Ahem! Sorry to have to suggest it myself, but have you got any tea to give away to a thirsty apothecary?”
“Certainly. Sit down and have a cup.”
“I will,” said Mr Deadwood. “As I have previously remarked, you’re not a bad sort. After all, you can’t help being an ass. You condemned Jim to death, and Trefusis has reprieved him. Two lumps and plenty of milk, and the toast is—JIM!”