r the injured eye, and secured the whole with a
spica bandage, secundum artem.

"Thank ye kindly, sir," said the woman, when his work was finished;
"that's nice and warm, and may God bless your honour. But it wasn't
about my eye at all that I came to see a doctor."

"Not your eye?" Dr. Horace Wilkinson was beginning to be a little
doubtful as to the advantages of quick diagnosis. It is an excellent
thing to be able to surprise a patient, but hitherto it was always the
patient who had surprised him.

"The baby's got the measles."

The mother parted the red shawl, and exhibited a little dark,
black-eyed gypsy baby, whose swarthy face was all flushed and mottled
with a dark-red rash. The child breathed with a rattling sound, and it
looked up at the doctor with eyes which were heavy with want of sleep
and crusted together at the lids.

"Hum! Yes. Measles, sure enough--and a smart attack."

"I just wanted you to see her, sir, so that you could signify."

"Could what?"

"Signify, if anything happened."

"Oh, I see--certify."

"And now that you've seen it, sir, I'll go on, for Reuben--that's my
man--is in a hurry."

"But don't you want any medicine?"

"Oh, now you've seen it, it's all right. I'll let you know if anything
happens."

"But you must have some medicine. The child is very ill." He
descended into the little room which he had fitted as a surgery, and he
made up a two-ounce bottle of cooling medicine. In such cities as
Sutton there are few patients who can afford to pay a fee to both
doctor and chemist, so that unless the physician is prepared to play
the part of both he will have little chance of making a living at
either.

"There is your medicine, madam. You will find the directions upon the
bottle. Keep the child warm and give it a light diet."

"Thank you kindly, sir." She shouldered her baby and marched for the
door.

"Excuse me, madam," said the doctor nervously. "Don't you think it too
small a matter to make a bill of? Perhaps it would be better if we had
a settlement at once."

The gypsy woman looked at him reproachfully out of her one uncovered
eye.

"Are you going to charge me for that?" she asked. "How much, then?"

"Well, say half-a-crown." He mentioned the sum in a half-jesting way,
as though it were too small to take serious notice of, but the gypsy
woman raised quite a scream at the mention of it.

"'Arf-a-crown! for that?"

"Well, my good woman, why not go to