Raffles | Page 4

but little corrupted by the pawnbroker's
moth, and a new straw hat, on the top of a tram.
The address given in the advertisement was that of a flat at Earl's Court,
which cost me a cross-country journey, finishing with the District
Railway and a seven minutes' walk. It was now past mid-day, and the
tarry wood-pavement was good to smell as I strode up the Earl's Court
Road. It was great to walk the civilized world again. Here were men
with coats on their backs, and ladies in gloves. My only fear was lest I
might run up against one or other whom I had known of old. But it was
my lucky day. I felt it in my bones. I was going to get this berth; and
sometimes I should be able to smell the wood-pavement on the old
boy's errands; perhaps he would insist on skimming over it in his
bath-chair, with me behind.
I felt quite nervous when I reached the flats. They were a small pile in a
side street, and I pitied the doctor whose plate I saw upon the palings

before the ground-floor windows; he must be in a very small way, I
thought. I rather pitied myself as well. I had indulged in visions of
better flats than these. There were no balconies. The porter was out of
livery. There was no lift, and my invalid on the third floor! I trudged up,
wishing I had never lived in Mount Street, and brushed against a
dejected individual coming down. A full-blooded young fellow in a
frock-coat flung the right door open at my summons.
"Does Mr. Maturin live here?" I inquired.
"That's right," said the full-blooded young man, grinning all over a
convivial countenance.
"I--I've come about his advertisement in the Daily Mail."
"You're the thirty-ninth," cried the blood; "that was the thirty-eighth
you met upon the stairs, and the day's still young. Excuse my staring at
you. Yes, you pass your prelim., and can come inside; you're one of the
few. We had most just after breakfast, but now the porter's heading off
the worst cases, and that last chap was the first for twenty minutes.
Come in here."
And I was ushered into an empty room with a good bay-window, which
enabled my full-blooded friend to inspect me yet more critically in a
good light; this he did without the least false delicacy; then his
questions began.
"'Varsity man?"
"No."
"Public school?"
"Yes."
"Which one?"
I told him, and he sighed relief.

"At last! You're the very first I've not had to argue with as to what is
and what is not a public school. Expelled?"
"No," I said, after a moment's hesitation; "no, I was not expelled. And I
hope you won't expel me if I ask a question in my turn?"
"Certainly not."
"Are you Mr. Maturin's son?"
"No, my name's Theobald. You may have seen it down below."
"The doctor?" I said.
"His doctor," said Theobald, with a satisfied eye. "Mr. Maturin's doctor.
He is having a male nurse and attendant by my advice, and he wants a
gentleman if he can get one. I rather think he'll see you, though he's
only seen two or three all day. There are certain questions which he
prefers to ask himself, and it's no good going over the same ground
twice. So perhaps I had better tell him about you before we get any
further."
And he withdrew to a room still nearer the entrance, as I could hear, for
it was a very small flat indeed. But now two doors were shut between
us, and I had to rest content with murmurs through the wall until the
doctor returned to summon me.
"I have persuaded my patient to see you," he whispered, "but I confess
I am not sanguine of the result. He is very difficult to please. You must
prepare yourself for a querulous invalid, and for no sinecure if you get
the billet."
"May I ask what's the matter with him?"
"By all means--when you've got the billet."
Dr. Theobald then led the way, his professional dignity so thoroughly
intact that I could not but smile as I followed his swinging coat-tails to
the sick-room. I carried no smile across the threshold of a darkened

chamber which reeked of drugs and twinkled with medicine bottles,
and in the middle of which a gaunt figure lay abed in the half-light.
"Take him to the window, take him to the window," a thin voice
snapped, "and let's have a look at him. Open the blind a bit. Not as
much as that, damn you, not as much as that!"
The doctor took the oath as though it had been a fee. I no longer pitied
him. It was now very clear