Here, too, the members of the consulting staff would arrive in their frock-coats and top-hats: great men, such as Lloyd Moore, the outstanding surgical genius of the Midlands; old Beaton, the professor of surgery, with his long, grey beard, and Hartley, the ophthalmologist, whose reputation was European. These giants would pass on through the swinging doors to their wards or consulting rooms, and on the very stroke of nine, W.G., who was a bad riser, and always cut things fine, would plunge in, carrying with him the strenuous atmosphere of a cold sponge and breezy enthusiasm. Then the clock would strike nine, and they would pass on together arm in arm, into the huge, airy waiting-hall with innumerable benches set crosswise like the pews in a church; and, at the same moment, the military porter, who had been marshalling the queue of out-patients, would release them, and a bewildering crowd of poorly-clad human wreckage would drift in behind them, settling patiently into the benches opposite the door of the department from which they were seeking relief. The work of Edwin and W.G. lay in the Casualty Department, a small room full of pleasant morning light. On one side of it ran a long counter with shelves for bottles, and drawers in which plasters, dressings, and ointments were kept. On the other, half a dozen chairs were ranged for the reception of patients. The medical staff consisted of four persons only: two professionals, a young and enthusiastic surgeon named Mather who held the post of Assistant Surgeon to Out-patients, and an elderly sister who had been on the job for years, and two amateurs in the shape of Edwin and W.G. All of them were clothed in white overalls; for the work of the casualty department was of a dirty nature, and these long garments also served as some protection from the swarming parasites that lived upon the bodies of their patients. Edwin, who suffered agonies of irritation from their attacks, also armed himself with a glass-stoppered bottle of ether with which he would drench the seat of irritation in the hopes of inflicting death or at least unconsciousness upon his tormentors. Then, one by one, the patients would file in, and plant themselves upon the wooden chairs: old men whose skins were foul with the ravages of eczema and dirt combined; women, exhausted in middle age by child-bearing, and the accepted slavery of housework; sturdy mechanics who had been the victims of some unavoidable accident; pale young women, made anxious for their livelihood by illness that its conditions had caused, and, more terrible than all, the steady stream of wan, transparent children, the idols of maternal care, the victims of maternal ignorance.