see in pictures. It had had the
Bangor coach over it, going down hill, and got caught in the skid. It
had been under an artillery corps and field-guns at a gallop, when the
Queen revoo'd the troops in Hyde Park. And look at it now! Horse-kicks
and wheel-crushing really had a bracing tendency; gave the constitution
tone, and seldom left any ill effects.

Only their consequences must be took in time. Well!--hadn't the child
gone to the Hospital? Dissentients who endeavoured to suggest that
broken bones and dislocations were unknown before the invention of
surgeons, were rebuked by the citation of instances of neglected
compound fractures whose crippled owners became athletes after their
bones had been scientifically reset, having previously been rebroken in
the largest number of places the narrator thought he could get credence
for. Hope told her flattering tale very quickly, for when Dave's uncle
and Jerry Alibone reappeared on their way to find the truth at the
Hospital, her hearers were ready with encouragement, whether they knew
anything about the matter or not. "I don't believe they do," said Uncle
Moses, and Mr. Alibone replied--"Not they, bless your heart!" But it was
refreshing for all that.

They met the police-sergeant on the way, coming from the Hospital to
bring the report and make inquiry about the child's belongings. They
credited him with superhuman insight when he addressed them
with:--"Either of you the father of a child knocked down by Fire-engine
67A in this street--taken into accident ward?" He spoke just as though
Engine 68B had knocked another child down in the next street, and so on
all over London.

But his sharpness was merely human. For scarcely a soul had passed but
paused to look round after them, wondering at the set jaw and pallid
face of the huge man who limped on a stick, seeming put to it to keep
the speed. Uncle Moses, you see, was a fine man in his own way of the
prizefighter type; and now, in his old age, worked out a little like Dr.
Samuel Johnson.

The report, as originally received by the police-officer, was that the
child was not killed but still unconscious. A good string of injuries
were credited to the poor little man, including a dislocated femur and
concussion of the brain. Quite enough, alone!--for the patient, his
friends and relations. The House-Surgeon, speaking professionally, spoke
also hopefully of undetected complications in the background. We might
pull him throu