Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/312

 box, and held a cigar to his nostrils. It is good to give of one's best to a friend, and his best had been such a sorry thing,—and Sorrell was his first friend.

"If I had known," said Kit, "that Sir Ormsby was standing there watching me,—I should have fumbled it."

"No you wouldn't. A cut throat is a cut throat."

"It—was—a throat. Nicked one carotid, and gone clean through the larynx. It took me the best part of two hours."

"Ormsby watched you for half an hour."

"As long as that!"

"And then he asked you to do an emergency job for him in the theatre."

"Just a simple appendix."

Orange held his big and clever hands to the fire.

"Glad—old man. We'll be on the staff together—some day."

"I hope so. And but for you"

"I've done nothing."

Orange did not tell Kit that Sir Ormsby Gaunt, that father of surgery and master of craft, had discussed Sorrell with him, and spoken significant words. "Good fellow that. Have you ever seen him blush, Orange?" Orange had seen Christopher blush, and it had sent a thrill of curious affection through him. Tenderness—almost. There were people who thought the "Orang" a jealous and a grudging beast, one of those fellows who grabbed and held on and showed his teeth if any other man came too near him, but Orange was happy in Christopher's success. He could give of his best to Sorrell because he wanted to give to him.

Nor was the work at St. Martha's the only avenue of experience that he opened to his friend. In his private work he sometimes needed assistance, and on Sundays Sorrell would go with Orange to some nursing-home, and add Orange's self-confidence to his own.

"Doing things, difficult things, day in and day out, and doing them better and better."

It was through Orange that Christopher obtained his first appointment, the post of junior surgeon to a hospital in the north of London.

"There is a vacancy at the Northern Free, a junior surgeonship. Sir Ormsby told me about it to-day in the staff-room. He mentioned you."