Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/384

 "You 've settled me now, you damned anarchist. Takin' the bread out of the mouth of an English workin'-man! But I 'll keep 'old of you till I 'm well or dead. I never did you no 'arm. S'pose I were a little full. They pumped me out once at Guy's with a stummick-pump. I could see that, but I can't see this 'ere, an' it 's killin' of me by slow degrees."

"You ’ll be all right in half-an-hour. What do you suppose I 'd want to kill you for?" said the doctor, who came of a logical breed.

"'Ow do I know? Tell 'em in court. You 'll get seven years for this, you body-snatcher. That 's what you are—a bloomin' body-snatcher. There 's justice, I tell you, in England; and my Union 'll prosecute, too. We don't stand no tricks with people's insides 'ere. They give a woman ten years for a sight less than this. An' you 'll 'ave to pay 'undreds an' 'undreds o' pounds, besides a pension to the missus. You 'll see, you physickin' furriner. Where 's your licence to do such? You 'll catch it, I tell you!!

Then I observed what I have frequently observed before, that a man who is but reasonably afraid of an altercation with an alien has a most poignant dread of the operations of foreign law. The doctor's voice was flute-like in its exquisite politeness, as he answered:

"But I 've given you a very great deal of money—fif—three pounds, I think."

"An' what 's three pound for poisonin' the likes o' me? They told me at Guy 's I 'd fetch twenty—cold—on the slates. Ouh! It 's comin' again."

A second time he was cut down by the foot, as it