Page:The Ghost (O'Connor).djvu/72

"The small girl's sick, sur. Begorra, I wor just pulling' on the boots tuh gaw for the docther, in th' nixt streth, an' summons him to her relief, fur it's bad she is. A'id betther be goan." Another start, and a movement to put on the boot instantly, baffled by his getting the lamp into the leg of it, and involving himself in difficulties in trying to get it out again without dropping either, or stopped finally by Dr. Renton.

"You need not go, Mr. Flanagan. I'll see to the child. Don't go."

He stepped slowly up the stairs, followed by the bewildered Flanagan. All this time Dr. Renton was listening to the racket from the bar-room. Clinking of glasses, rattling of dishes, trampling of feet, oaths and laughter, and a confused din of coarse voices, mingling with boisterous calls for oysters and drink, came, hardly deadened by the partition walls, from the haunt below, and echoed through the corridors. Loud enough within—louder in the street without, were the oysters and drink were reeling and roaring off to brutal dreams. People trying to sleep here; a sick child upstairs. Listen! "Two stew! One roast! Four ale! Hurry 'em up! Three stew! In number six!