Ocock on the other hand warmed to geniality.
"May I say, doctor, how wise I think your decision to come over to us?"
--He spoke as if Ballarat East were in the heart of the Russian steppes.
"And that reminds me. There's a friend of mine. . . . I may be able at
once to put a patient in your way."
Mahony walked home in a mood of depression which it took all Polly's
arts to dispel.
Under its influence he wrote an outspoken letter to Purdy--but with no
very satisfactory result. It was like projecting a feeler for sympathy
into the void, so long was it since they had met, and so widely had his
friend's life branched from his.
Purdy's answer--it was headed "The Ovens"--did not arrive till several
weeks later, and was mainly about himself.
IN A WAY I'M WITH YOU, OLD PILL-BOX, he wrote. YOU'LL CUT A JOLLY SIGHT
BETTER FIGURE AS AN M.D. THEN EVER YOU'VE DONE BEHIND A COUNTER. BUT I
DON'T KNOW THAT I'D CARE TO STAKE MY LAST DOLLAR ON YOU ALL THE SAME.
WHAT DOES MRS. POLLY SAY?--AS FOR ME, OLD BOY, SINCE YOU'RE GOOD ENOUGH
TO ASK, WHY THE LESS SAID THE BETTER. ONE OF THESE DAYS A POOR WORN OLD
SHICER'LL COME CRAWLING ROUND TO YOUR BACK DOOR TO SEE IF YOU'VE ANY
CAST-OFF DUDS YOU CAN SPARE HIM. SERIOUSLY, DICK, OLD MAN, I'M STONY-BROKE
ONCE MORE AND THE LORD ONLY KNOWS HOW I'M GOING TO WIN THROUGH.
In the course of that winter, custom died a natural death; and one day,
the few oddments that remained having been sold by auction, Mahony and
his assistant nailed boards horizontally across the entrance to the
store.
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