had been done to the lady's ankle, the lady herself having assisted him to this conclusion by coming to her senses, groaning, and putting her hand down to the suffering joint.
The conductor frowned. "What is the lady's name and address, please, ma'am?" he asked of Mrs. Tarbell. "I have to make a report of the accident."
"You'll find it out soon enough," said a thin man with a fresh complexion, very silvery hair, and spectacles. "The company will not have to wait long for the information." He looked about with a cheerful smile, and the conductor glared at him contemptuously. "She never tried to get on while you were going," continued the thin man. "It was your driver; that's what it was."
"The lady's name is Stiles, conductor," said Mrs. Tarbell,—"Stiles; and she lives—dear me!—on Pulaski Street. Can I do anything for you, doctor?"
"You might send your boy for a carriage," said the doctor, who was engaged in removing Mrs. Stiles's shoe. "Nothing else, thank you, unless you happen to have some lead-water about you." He gave a professional smile, and Mrs. Stiles groaned dismally.
Mrs. Tarbell despatched John for the carriage, and then, turning, and blushing in a way that was rather out of keeping with her tone of voice, she said, "Now, I should be obliged if you gentlemen who saw the accident would furnish me with your names and addresses."
On hearing this the crowd began to diminish rapidly; but the man with the red moustache set a good example by giving his name loudly and promptly as "Oscar B. Mecutchen, tobacconist, d'reckly opposite the City Hall." So three or four other men allowed Mrs. Tarbell to set them down as observers of the disaster. The gentleman in spectacles was named Stethson, another man, a tall, fat-cheeked countryman, Vickers, and a dried up little party, in a Grand-Army-of-the-Republic suit, Parthenheimer. Mrs. Tarbell had the names down pat, and scrutinized each prospective witness carefully, as if warning him that it would be no use for him to give a fictitious name in the hope of evading his duties, as she would now be able to pick him out of a regiment.
"I am very much obliged to you," she said, in a stately manner. "Now, you all agree that the accident was the result of the negligence of the driver of the car?"
"Why, yes, certainly," they all agreed at once.
"Leastways—" said Mecutchen.
"That is—" said Parthenheimer.
"How was it, anyway?" asked Stethson.
"Thought you saw it," cried the others, turning on him instantly.
"So I did," said Stethson; "but I thought I'd like to hear what you gentlemen's impression was."
"Well," said Mecutchen and Vickers, the tall man, together, tipping back their hats with a simultaneous and precisely similar movement on the part of each,—nothing is more indicative of the careful independence of the average American than the way in which he always keeps his head covered in the presence of his lawyer,—"Well," said Vickers and Mecutchen.
Mr. Mecutchen bowed to Mr. Vickers, and Mr. Vickers bowed to Mr. Mecutchen, with a sort of grotesque self-effacement. Mr. Vickers waved his hand, and Mr. Mecutchen proceeded.
"Why," said he, "the lady stopped the car in the middle of the block,—just like a woman,—got on the platform, car started with a jerk, and she fell off."
Vickers and Parthenheimer nodded assent, but Stethson said that his view of it was that the car started off again while she was trying to get on.
"That makes it stronger," said Mecutchen.
"Well, of course," said Stethson, settling his spectacles farther back on his nose; and Vickers murmured that you couldn't have it too strong, as he knew from the point of view (as he said) of cows. "It's wonderful what you can get for cows," he added pensively.
"Ag'in' a railroad company," said the grizzled old Parthenheimer, "the stronger the better, because some cases, no matter how aggerawated they are, you only git a specific sum and no damages. But a railroad case, which is a damage case right through, the worse they are the more you git. I had a little niece to be killed by a freight-train, and they took off that pore little girl's head, and her right arm, and her left leg, all three, like it was done by a mowing-machine,—so clean cut, you know. Well, sir, they got a werdick for six thousand dollars, my brother and his wife did; and their lawyer stood to it that the mangling brought in three thousand; and I think he was right about it, too."
"Six thousand!" said Vickers, with immense appreciation.
"The court set it aside for being excessive," said Parthenheimer," and aft'werds they compromised for less. But there it was. And the way it was done was odd, too. Right arm and left leg."
"Ah," said Vickers, "living right on a railroad, the way I do, you see some queerer accidents than that. Now, I remember—"
But Mrs. Tarbell found this conversation growing quite too ghastly to be listened to with composure, so she turned abruptly toward the sofa. The doctor was now bathing and examining Mrs. Stiles's ankle, and Mrs. Stiles looked not merely the picture but the dramatic materialization of misery.
"How do you feel now, Mrs. Stiles? How do you think she is, doctor?"
These two questions were put in Mrs. Tarbell's sweetest tones.
Mrs. Stiles lay for a moment without answering, but the doctor replied that he was afraid it was a nasty business. "There is a dislocation, and there may be nothing more, except a sprain," he said. "But it will be impossible to tell until the swelling is reduced; and if there is a fracture of the fibula, why, such a complication is apt to be serious."
Mrs. Stiles groaned feebly, and then looked up at Mrs. Tarbell with gratitude. "I never thought to be so much trouble to you," she murmured.
"Do not think of that for a moment," said Mrs. Tarbell. "If I only had my cologne-bottle," she said, half aloud, in an apologetic voice. This was one of the luxuries she had refused herself in her professional toilet; more than this, she did not allow herself to carry a smelling-bottle, though Mr. Juddson had told her it could be used with great effect to disconcert an opposing counsel.
"I am afraid you are suffering very much," she went on.
"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stiles sadly. "If I hadn't only been such a fool as to try to get on that there car while it was a-going."
Mrs. Tarbell started. The doctor rose and laughed.
"You don't mean that," said he.
"Mean what, doctor?"
"That you tried to get on while the car was going. All these gentlemen here say the car started while you were trying to get on, which is a very different thing, you know." The doctor had evidently kept his ears open while attending to the sufferer. Mrs. Tarbell, rather red in the face, kept silent, not knowing exactly what she ought to do.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Stiles feebly. "I don't s'pose I remember much."
"Of course you don't," said the doctor cheerfully. "Bless you, you'll sue the company and have a famous verdict; I wouldn't take ten thousand dollars for your chances if I had them. You observe," he went on confidentially to Mrs. Tarbell, "I am doing my best for the community of interests which, ought to exist among the learned professions. I raise this poor woman's spirits by suggesting to her dreams of enormous damages, and at the same time I promote litigation, to the great advantage of her lawyer. I think that is the true scientific spirit."
"I—I—" began Mrs.
