“Well I don’t know. I was going with a woman I did not really know. I meant to go, and she had been thinking of going and knew Paris and where to stay cheaply and suggested we should join forces. A sort of marriage of convenience. I was not really disappointed. I was relieved; though awfully sorry to fail her. But everyone was so kind I was simply astonished. I spent the evening on the sofa in the dining-room; and they all sat quietly about near me. One man, a Swede, who had only just arrived, sat on the end of the sofa and told Swedish folk stories in a quiet motherly voice, and turned out afterwards to be the noisiest, jolliest, most screamingly funny man we have ever had here. About eleven o’clock I felt faint and we discovered that my arm must have broken out again some time before. Two of the men rushed off to find a doctor and brought an extraordinary little old retired surgeon with white hair and trembling hands. He wheezed and puffed and bound me up afresh and went away refusing a fee. I wanted some milk, and the Swede went out at midnight and found some somewhere ...... I come back with at least one cow or I come not at all..... Of course a week later I had stitch abscesses.” “But this man was a _criminal_.” “Yes wasn’t it abominable. Poor man. The two doctors who saw my arm later said that many limbs have been lost for less. He counted on my being in such good health. He told Mrs. Bailey I was in splendid health. But he sent in a big bill.” “I sincerely trust you did not pay this.” “I sent him a description of his operation, told him the result and said that my friends considered that I ought to prosecute him.” “Certainly it was your duty.” “I don’t know. I hate cornering people. It would not have made him different and I am no better than he is.” “That is a most extraordinary point of view.” “I was sorry afterwards that I had written like that.” “Why?” “Because he threw himself into Dublin Harbour a year later. He must have been in _fearful_ difficulties.” “No excuse for criminal neglect.”