You don't remember me at present, which is natural enough in the unbalanced condition of your mind, consequent, you will understand (as a professional person yourself) on copious loss of blood."
There my patience gave way.
"Never mind me!" I interposed.
"Tell me about the lady!"
"You have opened your mouth, sir!" cried Mr. MacGlue, severely.
"You know the penalty—take a sup of this.
I told you we should proceed systematically," he went on, after he had forced me to submit to the penalty.
"Everything in its place, Mr. Germaine—everything in its place.
I was speaking of your bodily condition.
Well, sir, and how did I discover your bodily condition?
Providentially for you I was driving home yesterday evening by the lower road (which is the road by the river bank), and, drawing near to the inn here (they call it a hotel; it's nothing but an inn), I heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile off.
A good woman enough, you will understand, as times go; but a poor creature in any emergency.
Keep still, I'm coming to it now.
Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to anything wanted in the medical way; and there I found you and the stranger lady in a position which I may truthfully describe as standing in some need of improvement on the score of propriety.
Tut! tut!
I speak jocosely—you were both in a dead swoon.
Having heard what the landlady had to tell me, and having, to the best of my ability, separated history from hysterics in the course of the woman's narrative, I found myself, as it were, placed between two laws.
The law of gallantry, you see, pointed to the lady as the first object of my professional services, while the law of humanity (seeing that you were still bleeding) pointed no less imperatively to you.
I am no longer a young man: I left the lady to wait.
My word! it was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal with your case, and get you carried up here out of the way.
That old wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with.
I bid you beware how you open it again.
The next time you go out for an evening walk and you see a lady in the water, you will do well for your own health to leave her there.
What's that I see?
Are you opening your mouth again?
Do you want another sup already?"
"He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother, interpreting my wishes for me.
"Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a man who found no great attraction in the subject proposed to him.
"There's not much that I know of to be said about the lady.
A fine woman, no doubt.
If you could strip the flesh off her bones, you would find a splendid skeleton underneath.
For, mind this! there's no such thing as a finely made woman without a good bony scaffolding to build her on at starting.
I don't think much of this lady—morally speaking, you will understand.
If I may be permitted to say so in your presence, ma'am, there's a man in the background of that dramatic scene of hers on the bridge.
However, not being the man myself, I have nothing to do with that.
My business with the lady was just to set her vital machinery going again.
And, Heaven knows, she proved a heavy handful!
It was even a more obstinate case to deal with, sir, than yours.
I never, in all my experience, met with two people more unwilling to come back to this world and its troubles than you two were.
And when I had done the business at last, when I was wellnigh swooning myself with the work and the worry of it, guess—I give you leave to speak for this once—guess what were the first words the lady said to me when she came to herself again."
I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenuity.
"I give it up!" I said, impatiently.
"You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue.
"The first words she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged her out of the very jaws of death were these:
'How dare you meddle with me? why didn't you leave me to die?'
Her exact language—I'll take my Bible oath of it.
I was so provoked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in her own coin.
'There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said; 'do it again.
I, for one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise you that.'
She looked up sharply.