s how the
Lord Lieutenant has for to send to us, sure, bekase them murtheren'
'sassa docthers that he brought from over the say with him from Inkland
ain't a patch on our chaps! But, faix, sor, a poor woman as the
professor knows is took moighty bad in her inside, some of her
neighbours says, an' wants help at onst!'

"`Who is it, O'Dowd?' I asks. `Do you know where she lives?'

"`Mistress Flannagan's her name,' says the porter. `She's Mistress
Lancett's ould la'ndress, sor; a cantankerous ould woman, too, an' wid
the divvle of a temper! She lives jist out of Dame Strate, sure, in
Abbey Lane. Any one'll till ye the place, sure!'

"`What say you to goin' to say the poor crayture?' says I to Terence
Mahony. `We'll lave word where we're gone, an' I'm sure Mr Lancett
will be plaised to hear we're looking afther the ould lady!'

"`Begorrah, that he will, sor,' agreed O'Dowd, the porter. `It's
moighty kind of you two young gintlemen going for to say her, an' I'll
make a p'int of lettin' the docther know whin he comes back from the
Lord Liftinnint!'

"`All right, O'Dowd,' says I. `Mind you till the professor, an' he can
thin follow us up on his return to the college--that is, if he loikes!'

"With that off the two of us wint on our errind of mercy, though it was
lucky I lift that message with O'Dowd, as ye'll larn prisintly!

"It didn't take us long to find the house where the sick woman was, for
as we turned into the strate, a dirty ould hag, smoking a short pipe,
came up to us with a smirk on her ugly phiz.

"`God save Ireland!' says she, addressing Terence. `Be yez the docther
jintlemen from the hospital, avic?'

"`Faix, we're that,' says my companion; `the pair of us!'

"`Thin come along,' says she. `Mistress Flannagan is dyin' to say you,
sure. The soight of yez is good for sore eyes!'

"`Begorrah!' says Terence, `I wouldn't have come at all at all if she
hadn't been dyin', the poor crayture! Where is she?'

"`In the corner there,' returns the old hag, removing her dirty little
black dhudeen of a pipe for a minnit from between her teeth, in order to
spake the bether. `She's a-sottin' in that cheir there, as she hav'
been since the mornin', widout sayin' a worrd to mortial saol afther she
tould us to sind for the docther. May the divvle fly away with me, but
Peggy Flannagan can be obstinate in foith, whin she likes!'

"Terence Mahony and I then poked our noses into the corner of the room,
the