FullReads

“I read a case in the paper where a man got it,” said Mr. Scutts. “He ‘ad his back ‘urt too, pore chap. How would you like to lay on your back all your life for a thousand pounds?”

“Will you ‘ave to lay abed all your life?” inquired his wife, staring.

“Wait till I get the money,” said Mr. Scutts; “then I might be able to tell you better.”

He gazed wistfully at the window. It was late October, but the sun shone and the air was clear. The sound of traffic and cheerful voices ascended from the little street. To Mr. Scutts it all seemed to be a part of a distant past.

“If that chap comes round to-morrow and offers me five hundred,” he said, slowly, “I don’t know as I won’t take it. I’m sick of this mouldy bed.”

He waited expectantly next day, but nothing happened, and after a week of bed he began to realize that the job might be a long one. The monotony, to a man of his active habits, became almost intolerable, and the narrated adventures of Mr. James Flynn, his only caller, filled him with an uncontrollable longing to be up and doing.

The fine weather went, and Mr. Scutts, in his tumbled bed, lay watching the rain beating softly on the window-panes. Then one morning he awoke to the darkness of a London fog.

“It gets worse and worse,” said Mrs. Scutts, as she returned home in the afternoon with a relish for his tea. “Can’t see your ‘and before your face.”

Mr. Scutts looked thoughtful. He ate his tea in silence, and after he had finished lit his pipe and sat up in bed smoking.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said his wife.

“I’m going out,” said Mr. Scutts, in a voice that defied opposition. “I’m going to ‘ave a walk, and when I’m far enough away I’m going to ‘ave one or two drinks. I believe this fog is sent a-purpose to save my life.”

Mrs. Scutts remonstrated, but in vain, and at half-past six the invalid, with his cap over his eyes and a large scarf tied round the lower part of his face, listened for a moment at his front door and then disappeared in the fog.

Left to herself, Mrs. Scutts returned to the bedroom and, poking the tiny fire into a blaze, sat and pondered over the willfulness of men.

She was awakened from a doze by a knocking at the street-door. It was just eight o’clock, and, inwardly congratulating her husband on his return to common sense and home, she went down and opened it. Two tall men in silk hats entered the room.

“Mrs. Scutts?” said one of them.

Mrs. Scutts, in a dazed fashion, nodded.

“We have come to see your husband,” said the intruder. “I am a doctor.”

The panic-stricken Mrs. Scutts tried in vain to think.

“He-he’s asleep,” she said, at last.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the doctor.

“Not a bit,” said his companion.

“You–you can’t see him,” protested Mrs. Scutts. “He ain’t to be seen.”

“He’d be sorry to miss me,” said the doctor, eyeing her keenly as she stood on guard by the inner door. “I suppose he’s at home?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Scutts, stammering and flushing. “Why, the pore man can’t stir from his bed.”

“Well, I’ll just peep in at the door, then,” said the doctor. “I won’t wake him. You can’t object to that. If you do–“

Mrs. Scutts’s head began to swim. “I’ll go up and see whether he’s awake,” she said.

She closed the door on them and stood with her hand to her throat, thinking. Then, instead of going upstairs, she passed into the yard and, stepping over the fence, opened Mr. Flynn’s back door.

“Halloa!” said that gentleman, who was standing in the scullery removing mud from his boots. “What’s up?”

In a frenzied gabble Mrs. Scutts told him. “You must be ‘im,” she said, clutching him by the coat and dragging him towards the door. “They’ve never seen ‘im, and they won’t know the difference.”