It was my
rude, fat friend of the sweetmeat shop. The blind woman heard and stepped
forward. "What is it, Mrs. Madehurst?" she asked.
The woman flung her apron over her head and literally grovelled in the
dust, crying that her grandchild was sick to death, that the local doctor
was away fishing, that Jenny the mother was at her wits end, and so forth,
with repetitions and bellowings.
"Where's the next nearest doctor?" I asked between paroxysms.
"Madden will tell you. Go round to the house and take him with you. I'll
attend to this. Be quick!" She half-supported the fat woman into the
shade. In two minutes I was blowing all the horns of Jericho under the
front of the House Beautiful, and Madden, in the pantry, rose to the
crisis like a butler and a man.
A quarter of an hour at illegal speeds caught us a doctor five miles away.
Within the half-hour we had decanted him, much interested in motors, at
the door of the sweetmeat shop, and drew up the road to await the verdict.
"Useful things cars," said Madden, all man and no butler. "If I'd had one
when mine took sick she wouldn't have died."
"How was it?" I asked.
"Croup. Mrs. Madden was away. No one knew what to do. I drove eight miles
in a tax cart for the doctor. She was choked when we came back. This car
'd ha' saved her. She'd have been close on ten now."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought you were rather fond of children from what
you told me going to the cross-roads the other day.
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