I
wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out
that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but
recollect them all;--if I could but stop the nugget, too!"
So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked round.
Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the bottles, and armies
of mites played at bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and
found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its
contents were two old dried-up horse-balls, and a dirty tobacco-pipe.
He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh
snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol.
The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue.
The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter
was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vegetable and
mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco ashes, and broken
glass.
Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear up,
whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale.
"I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see."
"Then you really are a professional practitioner, sir, as Mr. Headley
informs me: though, of course, I don't doubt the fact?" said Heale,
summoning up all the little courage he had, to ask the question with.
"F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write and
ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law union, and
to a Brazilian man-of-war.
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