VII

THE OPERATION

Dr. Price was not entirely at ease in his mind as the two doctors drove rapidly from the hotel to Major Carteret’s.  Himself a liberal man, from his point of view, he saw no reason why a colored doctor might not operate upon a white male child,—­there are fine distinctions in the application of the color line,—­but several other physicians had been invited, some of whom were men of old-fashioned notions, who might not relish such an innovation.

This, however, was but a small difficulty compared with what might be feared from Major Carteret himself.  For he knew Carteret’s unrelenting hostility to anything that savored of recognition of the negro as the equal of white men.  It was traditional in Wellington that no colored person had ever entered the front door of the Carteret residence, and that the luckless individual who once presented himself there upon alleged business and resented being ordered to the back door had been unceremoniously thrown over the piazza railing into a rather thorny clump of rosebushes below.  If Miller were going as a servant, to hold a basin or a sponge, there would be no difficulty; but as a surgeon—­well, he wouldn’t borrow trouble.  Under the circumstances the major might yield a point.

But as they neared the house the major’s unyielding disposition loomed up formidably.  Perhaps if the matter were properly presented to Dr. Burns, he might consent to withdraw the invitation.  It was not yet too, late to send Miller a note.

“By the way, Dr. Burns,” he said, “I’m very friendly to Dr. Miller, and should personally like to have him with us to-night.  But—­I ought to have told you this before, but I couldn’t very well do so, on such short notice, in Miller’s presence—­we are a conservative people, and our local customs are not very flexible.  We jog along in much the same old way our fathers did.  I’m not at all sure that Major Carteret or the other gentlemen would consent to the presence of a negro doctor.”

“I think you misjudge your own people,” returned Dr. Burns, “they are broader than you think.  We have our prejudices against the negro at the North, but we do not let them stand in the way of anything that we want.  At any rate, it is too late now, and I will accept the responsibility.  If the question is raised, I will attend to it.  When I am performing an operation I must be aut Caesar, aut nullus.”

Dr. Price was not reassured, but he had done his duty and felt the reward of virtue.  If there should be trouble, he would not be responsible.  Moreover, there was a large fee at stake, and Dr. Burns was not likely to prove too obdurate.

They were soon at Carteret’s, where they found assembled the several physicians invited by Dr. Price.  These were successively introduced as Drs. Dudley, Hooper, and Ashe, all of whom were gentlemen of good standing, socially and in their profession, and considered it a high privilege to witness so delicate an operation at the hands of so eminent a member of their profession.