That of course would have been the
reasonable, the gentlemanly thing to do, but just in order to insult me,
to break into the privacy of a man who, you know, has always endeavoured
to protect himself and his life from vulgar tongues and eyes, you must
needs browbeat my servants, and break open my house. I tell you, sir,
this is a matter for the lawyers! It shan't end here. I've sent for an
ambulance, and I'll thank you to make arrangements at once to remove this
young man to some neighbouring hospital, where, I understand, he will
have every attention."
Melrose, even at seventy, was over six feet, and as he stood towering
above the little doctor, his fine gray hair flowing back from strong
aquiline features, inflamed with a passion of wrath, he made a
sufficiently magnificent appearance. Undershaw grew a little pale, but he
fronted his accuser quietly.
"If you wish him removed, Mr. Melrose, you must take the responsibility
yourself, I shall have nothing to do with it--nor will the nurses."
"What do you mean, sir? You get yourself and me into this d----d hobble,
and then you refuse to take the only decent way out of it! I request
you--I command you--as soon as the Whitebeck ambulance comes, to remove
your patient _at once_, and the two women who are looking after him."
Undershaw slipped his hands into his pockets. The coolness of the gesture
was not lost on Melrose.
"I regret that for a few days to come I cannot sanction anything of the
kind.
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