"Well, indeed, the Poor have a deal to put up with!" said Mrs. Mangan, lazily, leaning back in her basket-chair, with her big grey cat purring like an aeroplane engine on her knee. "The Doctor says no one but himself knows the way he's dragged all over the country, patching up after some of them young fellows that get dispensaries before they're fit to doctor the cat!" The reformer, that underlay the artist in Larry, awoke. "But, Mrs. Mangan," he said, hotly, sitting up in bed, and glaring into the gloom at Mrs. Mangan's half-seen face, "why do they give dispensaries to chaps that can't doctor a cat?" "Because their fathers can spend four or five hundred pounds to buy votes!" returned Mrs. Mangan, laughing at him. "Is that news to you? Lie down child, and don't be looking at me like that! _I_ haven't a vote to sell!" Larry subsided with vague splutterings. Nurse came to his bedside and smoothed the clothes. "Listen to me now," she said impressively, "and _I'll_ tell you something to make you angry, if you like!" She leaned against the foot of the bed, with her hands in the pockets of her apron, looking down at him. "I was in charge of th' infirmary at Mellifont one time, and late one evening a young farm-boy was brought in to me with a dislocated foot and a 'Pott's Fracture'--" "In the name o' God, what's that?" enquired Mrs. Mangan. "Fracture of the fibula, but the case I'm speaking of had the two bones broken at the ankle," explained Nurse Brennan, in her most professional manner; "sure I thought anyone'd know that! And I can tell you," she leaned towards Larry, striking the palm of her left hand with her little clenched right fist, as if to hammer the words into him, "I can assure _you_, that as bad as you thought you were, you don't know what pain _is_ beside what that boy suffered! Well, I sent for the doctor--a young brat of a fella that hadn't but just left college. 'He'll want an anaesthetic,' says he, 'I'll send down for Doctor ----' (I'll not tell you his name--Smith, I'll call him!) 'Do you give him some brandy, nurse,' says he, 'Dr. Smith'll be here soon.' Sure enough he was, and glad I was to see him, for the patient was suffering greatly, and the leg swelling every minyute. It was a long ward he was in, and no one at all in it but himself. At the far end there was a table and a lamp, and down at the table me gentlemen sat, and commenced to talk." Nurse Brennan paused, and Mrs. Mangan gave the fire a well-directed poke, that set the flames branching upwards. The tale was resumed, in those cool and equable tones that express a more perfected indignation than any heat or haste could convey. "Well, that was nine o'clock, and they talked there for two hours, and I giving the patient brandy, and expecting every minyute he'd collapse. And what do you suppose they were talking about? Fighting they were! Disputing which of them would perform the operation, and which would administer the chloroform!"