He became by turns delirious and drowsy, and the woman fetched a doctor early the next day.  He found enteric and blood-poisoning also, of which Rickman’s illness at the Rankins’ must have been the first warning symptoms.

“He’ll have to go to the hospital; but you’d better send word to his friends.”

“’E ain’t got no friends.  And I dunno ’oo ’e is.”

The doctor said to himself, “Gone under,” and looked round him for a clue.  He examined a postcard from Spinks and a parcel (containing an overcoat) from Rankin, with the novelist’s name and address inside the wrapper.  The poet’s name was familiar to the doctor, who read Metropolis.  He first of all made arrangements for removing his patient to the hospital.  Then in his uncertainty he telegraphed to Jewdwine, to Rankin and to Spinks.

The news of Rickman’s illness was thus spread rapidly among his friends.  It brought Spinks that afternoon, and Flossie, the poor Beaver, dragged to Howland Street by her husband to see what her woman’s hands could do.  They entered upon a scene of indescribable confusion and clangour.  Poppy Grace, arrived on her errand (for which she had attired herself in a red dress and ermine tippet), had mounted guard over the unconscious poet.

“Ricky,” cried Poppy, bending over him, “won’t you speak to me?  It’s Poppy, dear.  Don’t you know me?”

“No, ’e don’t know yer, so you needn’t arsk ’im.”

Poppy placed her minute figure defiantly between Rickman and her rival of the open door.  She had exhausted her emotions in those wild cries, and was prepared to enjoy the moment which produced in her the hallucination of self-conscious virtue.

The woman, voluble and fierce, began to describe Miss Grace’s character in powerful but somewhat exaggerated language, appealing to the new-comers to vindicate her accuracy.  Poppy seated herself on the bed and held a pocket-handkerchief to her virtuous nose.  It was the dumb and dignified rebuke of Propriety in an ermine tippet, to Vice made manifest in the infamy of rags.  The Beaver retreated in terror on to the landing, where she stood clutching the little basket of jellies and things which she had brought, as if she feared that it might be torn from her in the violence of the scene.  Spinks, convulsed with anguish by the sight of his friend lying there unconscious, could only offer an inarticulate expostulation.  It was the signal for the woman to burst into passionate self-defence.

“I ain’t took nothing ’cept wot the boss ’e myde me.  ’Go fer a doctor?’ ses ’e.  ’No you don’t.  I don’t ’ave no ——­y doctor messing round ‘ere an’ cartin’ ’im orf to the ’orspital afore ’e’s paid ’is rent.’  Ses ’e ’I’m—­”

The entrance of Maddox and Rankin checked the hideous flow.  They were followed by the porters of the hospital and the nurse in charge.  Her presence commanded instantaneous calm.

“There are far too many people in this room,” said she.  Her expelling glance fell first on Poppy, throned on the bed, then on the convulsive Spinks.  She turned more gently to Rankin, in whose mouth she saw remonstrance, and to Maddox, in whose eyes she read despair.  “It will really be better for him to take him to the hospital.”