"Oh if ONLY men wouldn't be so foolish!"
Left to himself Mahony put away his books, washed his hands and summoned
one by one to his presence the people who waited in the adjoining room.
He drew a tooth, dressed a wounded wrist, prescribed for divers internal
disorders--all told, a baker's dozen of odd jobs.
When the last patient had gone he propped open the door, wiped his
forehead and read the thermometer that hung on the wall: it marked 102
degrees. Dejectedly he drove, in fancy, along the glaring, treeless roads,
inches deep in cinnamon-coloured dust. How one learnt to hate the sun out
here. What wouldn't he give for a cool, grey-green Irish day, with a wet
wind blowing in from the sea?--a day such as he had heedlessly squandered
hundreds of, in his youth. Now it made his mouth water only to think of
them.
It still wanted ten minutes to ten o'clock and the buggy had not yet
come round. He would lie down and have five minutes' rest before
starting: he had been up most of the night, and on getting home had been
kept awake by neuralgia.
When an hour later Mary reached home, she was amazed to find groom and
buggy still drawn up in front of the house.
"Why, Molyneux, what's the matter? Where's the doctor?"
"I'm sure I don't know, Mrs. Mahony. I've hollered to Biddy half a dozen
times, but she doesn't take any notice. And the mare's that
restless. . . . There, there, steady old girl, steady now! It's these damn
flies.
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