"I asked if you had brought the sovereign," repeated the doctor. "If your firm is prepared to pay me a sovereign for my services to you, I shall, of course, be delighted to make out a bill for that amount." "But you on’y seed me twice," protested the visitor. "That is what I wish to point out. My proper fees amount to eighteen pence. But if you want to pay me a p——" "I _don’t_ wanter to pay you a pound," bellowed the petitioner angrily. "Nothing so ridiculous." "In that case," responded the doctor, "let us say no more about the bill." "Do you call yeself a genelman?" demanded this martyred soul, with a choke in his voice. "Do you call yeself a genelman to stop a pore drayman from earnin’ his honest compensation? ’Ow’m I goin’ on for compensation?" "Compensation for what?" inquired the doctor. "Fur me accident," replied the man. "I bin laid up fower weeks." "One day of which," the doctor pointed out, "you spent in bed. Did they stop your wages?" "Well, no," admitted the martyr. "They paid me me wages all right. But I ain’t drored nothink fur me accident." "You drew a very comfortable holiday, at any rate," suggested the doctor. "A four weeks’ rest cure on full wages. And that shoulder, you know, it was not what one could call a permanent injury: it hardly amounted to disablement. Do you think so?" "Words," stated the sufferer, "cannot describe the agonies what I bin through." "You surprise me," murmured Dr. Brink. "Anyhow, you’ve been strong enough to do a lot of standing about outside the ’African Chief.’" "What if I ’ave?" submitted the injured man. "Ain’t I still entitled to compensation fur my accident?" "It seems to me you’ve had it," argued the doctor. "That I ain’t," asserted the indignant claimant; "not a blighted ’a’penny." "Four weeks’ rest, full pay," recited the doctor, with an air of monotony. "Wiv me shoulder-blade all to Bucklesbury," added the claimant. "And not a brazen farthing fur me accident. I ’ad the corpuscular accident all right, I suppose? Ye don’t deny it, do ye?" "By no means," exclaimed the doctor. "Didn’t I myself attend you for a unique complaint in the shoulder-blade?" "Very well, then," pursued the invalid, somewhat mollified by this admission. "In that case I demand my rights. I demand the rights of a honest workin’ man. I ask for compensation for my accident, same’s what I’m entitled to accordin’ to lor. Will you write out that invoice fur me?" "Certainly: for the exact amount which you may care to pay me."