So it was the Probationer and the Dummy who received the new case,
while the Senior ate cold salmon and fried potatoes with other
seniors, and inveighed against lectures on Saturday evening and
other things that seniors object to, such as things lost in the
wash, and milk in the coffee instead of cream, and women from the
Avenue who drank carbolic acid and kept the ambulance busy.
The Probationer was from the country and she had never heard of
the Avenue. And the Dummy, who walked there daily with the
superintendent's dog, knew nothing of its wickedness. In his soul,
where there was nothing but kindness, there was even a feeling of
tenderness for the Avenue. Once the dog had been bitten by a terrier
from one of the houses, and a girl had carried him in and washed the
wounds and bound them up. Thereafter the Dummy had watched for her
and bowed when he saw her. When he did not see her he bowed to the
house.
The Dummy finished the brass plates and, gathering up his rags and
polish, shuffled to the door. His walk was a patient shamble, but he
covered incredible distances. When he reached the emergency bed he
stopped and pointed to it. The Probationer looked startled.
"He's tellin' you to get it ready," shrilled Irish Delia, sitting up
in the next bed. "He did that before you was brought in," she called
to Old Maggie across the ward. "Goodness knows how he finds out--but
he knows. Get the spread off the bed, miss. There's something
coming."
* * * * *
The Probationer had come from the country and naturally knew nothing
of the Avenue. Sometimes on her off duty she took short walks there,
wondering if the passers-by who stared at her knew that she was a
part of the great building that loomed over the district, happily
ignorant of the real significance of their glances. Once a girl,
sitting behind bowed shutters, had leaned out and smiled at her.
"Hot to-day, isn't it?" she said.
The Probationer stopped politely.
"It's fearful! Is there any place near where I can get some soda
water?"
The girl in the window stared.
"There's a drug store two squares down," she said. "And say, if I
were you----"
"Yes?"
"Oh, nothing!" said the girl in the window, and quite unexpectedly
slammed the shutters.
The Probationer had puzzled over it quite a lot. More than once she
walked by the house, but she did not see the smiling girl--only,
curiously enough, one day she saw the Dummy passing the house and
watched him bow and take off his old cap, though there was no one in
sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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