I'll call him!) 'Do you give him some brandy, nurse,' says he, 'Dr.
Smith'll be here soon.' Sure enough he was, and glad I was to see him,
for the patient was suffering greatly, and the leg swelling every
minyute. It was a long ward he was in, and no one at all in it but
himself. At the far end there was a table and a lamp, and down at the
table me gentlemen sat, and commenced to talk."

Nurse Brennan paused, and Mrs. Mangan gave the fire a well-directed
poke, that set the flames branching upwards. The tale was resumed, in
those cool and equable tones that express a more perfected indignation
than any heat or haste could convey.

"Well, that was nine o'clock, and they talked there for two hours, and
I giving the patient brandy, and expecting every minyute he'd
collapse. And what do you suppose they were talking about? Fighting
they were! Disputing which of them would perform the operation, and
which would administer the chloroform!"

Mrs. Mangan laughed lightly, and said: "I wouldn't at all doubt it!"

"Impossible!" exclaimed Larry.

"Not a bit impossible!" said Nurse Brennan, "and how d'ye think they
settled it in the end? They arranged one of them would begin th'
operation and go on for five minutes, and then he should stop and give
the anaesthetic, and the other would go on with the leg! Oh, it's the
case, I assure you! It was twelve o'clock at night before they were
done!"

She paused, laughing a little at the hot questions with which Larry
assailed her, but he could see the unshed tears gleaming in her eyes.
"I was summoned to a private case next day; I don't know what happened
to the unfortunate poor creature of a patient."

"A stiff leg he has, I'll be bound!" said Mrs. Mangan.

Larry lay silent. He saw it all. The long, dark ward, the white angel
figure (he thought, romantically) bending over the tortured creature
on the bed, and, far away, the pool of yellow light and in it those
two--he sought in vain for adjectives to express what he thought of
Dr. I'll-not-tell-you-his-name, and his young colleague.

CHAPTER XI

In the years that followed, "Larry's cads" came to be, for the young
Talbot-Lowrys, a convenient designation for the friends into whose
bosom Providence had seen fit to fling their cousin. But Larry never
either approved or accepted it. He was entirely pleased with his new
friends, and especially with that son of the house whose position he
had usurped, Mr. Bartholomew Mangan.