ian quotation proceeded to "take a walk
in Fleet Street" before settling down for the evening.

CHAPTER VI

SIDELIGHTS

The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I have
frequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactory
explanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of the
connection itself Barnard's practice furnished several instances besides
Mrs. Jablett's establishment in Fleur-de-Lys Court, one of which was a
dark and mysterious cavern a foot below the level of the street, that
burrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane--a
crinkly, timber house of the three-decker type that leaned back
drunkenly from the road as if about to sit down in its own back yard.

Passing this repository of the associated products about ten o'clock in
the morning, I perceived in the shadow of the cavern no less a person
than Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorily
with a hand that held a large Spanish onion. I approached with a
deferential smile.

"What a magnificent onion, Miss Oman! and how generous of you to offer
it to me--"

"I wasn't offering it to you. But there! Isn't it just like a man--"

"Isn't what just like a man?" I interrupted. "If you mean the onion--"

"I don't!" she snapped; "and I wish you wouldn't talk such a parcel of
nonsense. A grown man and a member of a serious profession, too! You
ought to know better."

"I suppose I ought," I said reflectively. And she continued:

"I called in at the surgery just now."

"To see me?"

"What else should I come for? Do you suppose that I called to consult
the bottle-boy?"

"Certainly not, Miss Oman. So you find the lady doctor no use, after
all?"

Miss Oman gnashed her teeth at me (and very fine teeth they were, too).

"I called," she said majestically, "on behalf of Miss Bellingham."

My facetiousness evaporated instantly. "I hope Miss Bellingham is not
ill," I said with a sudden anxiety that elicited a sardonic smile from
Miss Oman.

"No," was the reply, "she is not ill, but she has cut her hand rather
badly. It's her right hand, too, and she can't afford to lose the use of
it, not being a great, hulking, lazy, lolloping man. So you had better
go and put some stuff on it."

With this advice, Miss Oman whisked to the right-about and vanished into
the depths of the cavern like the Witch of Wokey, while I hurried on to
the surgery to provide myself with the neces