Polder behaves as though he had been placed under
eternal obligation by Rickett, and yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of
presents and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take the
trouble to conceal from you their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and
the women who blacken your character and misunderstand your wife's amusements,
will work themselves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick or into
serious trouble.
Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to his regular practice, a hospital
on his private account--an arrangement of loose boxes for Incurables, his
friend called it--but it was really a sort of fitting-up shed for craft that
had been damaged by stress of weather. The weather in India is often sultry,
and since the tale of bricks is always a fixed quantity, and the only liberty
allowed is permission to work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally
break down and become as mixed as the metaphors in this sentence.
Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever was, and his invariable
prescription to all his patients is, "lie low, go slow, and keep cool." He
says that more men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world
justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands
about three years ago.
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