Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXIII. More Doctors
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at the garden party at the English Embassy,
where Doctor Pilkington and Doctor Jones, once
more on speaking terms, formed the centre of
an animated group of listeners to the last news
from the Hôtel de Russie. The Swedish Minister
took me aside and told me in an angry voice
he did not want to have anything more to do
with me, he had had more than enough of my
eccentricities, to use a mild word. Last week
he had been told I had called a most respectable
old English doctor a hyæna. Yesterday the
wife of the English chaplain had told his own
wife that I had insulted the memory of a Scotch
parson. If I meant to go on in this way, I had
better return to Anacapri before the whole
foreign colony turned its back upon me.
After another week of intense suspense signs
of reaction began to set in. The betting among
the waiters now stood at evens, with a few
timid offers of five lire on no baby at all. When
the news spread that the two doctors had
quarrelled and that Doctor Pilkington had retired
with the second baby under his long frock-coat,
all the betting on twins came to an end. As
time went on the numbers of deserters increased
day by day, the English chaplain and his
congregation still rallying bravely round the
perambulator. Doctor Jones, the midwife and the
nurse were still sleeping in the hotel but Signor
Cornacchia warned by his keen scent had already
abandoned the sinking ship.
Then came the crash in the shape of a shrewd
looking old Scotsman who walked one day into
my consulting-room and sat down on the sofa
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