‘No occasion, Ma’am,’ replied the eminent but slightly fuddled ‘Saw-bones,’ spitting beside him on the floor ’until I see whether I’ll operate to-night.  What’s in that jug, Ma’am?  Chicken-broth?  That’ll do.  Give him a spoonful.  See—­he swallows free enough;’ and then Black Dillon plucked up his eyelids with a roughness that terrified the reverential and loving Mrs. Sturk, and examined the distorted pupils.

’You see the cast in that eye, Ma’am; there’s the pressure on the brain.’

Dillon was lecturing her upon the case as he proceeded, from habit, just as he did the students in the hospital.

‘No convulsions, Ma’am?’

’Oh, no, Sir, thank Heaven; nothing in the least—­only quiet sleep, Sir; just like that.’

’Sleep, indeed—­that’s no sleep, Ma’am.  Boo-hooh!  I couldn’t bawl that way in his face, Ma’am, without disturbing him, Ma’am, if it was.  Now we’ll get him up a bit—­there, that’s right—­aisy.  He was lying, Ma’am, I understand, on his back, when they found him in the park, Ma’am—­so Mr. Dangerfield says—­ay.  Well, slip the cap off—­backward—­backward, you fool; that’ll do.  Who plastered his head, Ma’am?’

‘Doctor Toole, Sir.’

’Toole—­Toole—­h’m—­I see—­hey—­hi—­tut! ’tis the devil’s pair of fractures, Ma’am.  See—­nearer—­d’ye see, there’s two converging lines—­d’ye see, Ma’am?’ and he indicated their directions with the silver handle of an instrument he held in his hand, ’and serrated at the edges, I’ll be bound.’

And he plucked off two or three strips of plaster with a quick whisk, which made poor little Mrs. Sturk wince and cry, ‘Oh, dear, Sir!’

‘Threpan, indeed!’ murmured Black Dillon, with a coarse sneer, ’did they run the scalpel anywhere over the occiput, Ma’am?’

‘I—­I—­truly, Sir—­I’m not sure,’ answered Mrs. Sturk, who did not perfectly understand a word he said.

The doctor’s hair had not been cut behind.  Poor Mrs. Sturk, expecting his recovery every day, would not have permitted the sacrilege, and his dishevelled cue lay upon his shoulders.  With his straight surgical scissors Black Dillon snipped off this sacred appendage before the good lady knew what he was about, and cropped the back of his head down to the closest stubble.

‘Will you send, if you please, Ma’am, for Doctor—­Doctor—­Thingumee?’

‘Doctor Toole?’ enquired Mrs. Sturk.

‘Doctor Toole, Ma’am; yes,’ answered the surgeon.

He himself went down to the coach at the hall-door, and in a few minutes returned with a case, and something in a cloth.  From the cloth he took an apparatus, like the cushioned back of a chair, with straps and buckles attached to it, and a sort of socket, the back of which was open, being intended to receive the head in.

‘Now, Ma’am, we’ll prop him up comfortable with this, if you please.’