"I
will, if you like, Mrs. Kirby!" he said, looking at her, like an old
horse, down his long, deplorable nose, "but I fear they will be not of
much use, as the glawss is remorkably low!"
Prayers for the modification of the weather are often treated as a
permissible subject for mirth, and Mrs. Kirby availed herself of the
convention; even Frederica and Mrs. St. George, stricken though they
were, smiled wanly.
CHAPTER XXI
At about this time, that imposing spectacle, once described by Mrs.
Twomey as "The Big Doctor and little Danny Aherne walking the streets
of Cluhir like two paycocks," was vouchsafed to the town rather more
frequently than was usually the case. Dr. Aherne had sent a patient,
who was no less a person than the priest of the parish of Pribawn, to
the private ward of the Infirmary in Cluhir, where he would, among
other advantages, receive daily visits from Dr. Mangan. Father Sweeny
was suffering from a broken leg, and other damages; a midnight drive
to a dying parishioner had ended, disastrously, in an unguarded
road-side ditch, and Dr. Aherne had thought it best to consign a
patient of such importance to the care of hands less occupied, as well
as of higher renown, than his own.
Thus it was that the Big Doctor and his kinsman saw more of each other
than is often possible for men whose work is as widespread and
incessant as is that of Irish Dispensary Doctors.
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