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In six weeks time Helling, as the sailor was named, was discharged. He made a simple and dignified little speech of thanks to the nurses for their attention, and another to the surgeon for saving his life. "Nonsense!" said Lincott, as he held out his hand. "Any medical student could have performed that operation." "Then I have another reason to thank you," answered Helling.
And his father said he wasn't any good except to idle away his time and spend money, and would come to a bad end by manslaughter in a high-powered car; or in the alcoholic ward of some hospital; that he was, in fact, a mere helling scapegrace that would have been put in some good detention home years before if he hadn't been born to a father that was all kinds of a so-and-so old Scotch fool.
Three weeks later Helling called at Lincott's house in Harley Street. Now, when hospital patients take the trouble, after they have been discharged, to find out the doctor's private address and call, it generally means they have come to beg. Lincott, remembering how Helling's simple courtesies had impressed him, experienced an actual disappointment.
I could have slept in beds under roofs. It's only fifteen shillings; nothing at all to you," and he looked round the consulting-room, with its pictures and electric lights, "but I want you to take it at what it has been worth to me ever since I came out of the hospital." Lincott took Helling into his dining-room. On a pedestal stood a great silver vase, blazing its magnificence across the room.
"You see that?" he asked. "Yes," said Helling. "It was given to me by a patient. It must have cost at the least £500." Helling tapped the vase with his knuckles. "Yes, sir, that's a present," he said enviously. "That is a present." Lincott laughed and threw up the window. "You can pitch it out into the street if you like. By the side of your coin it's muck." Lincott keeps the coin.
"Do you know what that's worth in England?" "Yes, I do," answered Helling with some trepidation. "Fifteen shillings," said Lincott. "Think of it, fifteen shillings, perhaps sixteen." "I know," interrupted Helling quickly, mistaking the surgeon's meaning. "But please, please, you mustn't think I value what you have done for me at that.
He felt his theories about the seafaring man begin to totter. However, Helling was shown into the consulting-room, and at the sight of him Lincott's disappointment vanished. He did not start up, since manifestations of surprise are amongst those things with which doctors find it advisable to dispense, but he hooked a chair forward with his foot. "Now then, sit down! Chuck yourself about!
So I guess we'll be trying the guns and the bomb finally, and then see what else we can do.... Now look, we've got what is it? nine or ten hours left. The first of the boys are pretty sure to come helling in around then. Or maybe something's happened we don't know about, and they'll be here in thirty minutes. We can't tell.
The states desisted from their scheme of reducing the city by famine, but they did not the less encourage the secret and unofficial expeditions which were daily set on foot to accomplish the annexation by a sudden enterprise. Late in November, a desperate attempt had been made by Colonel Helling, in conjunction with Governor Sonoy, to carry the city by surprise.
Helling, afraid to speak lest his coin should be refused, walked noiselessly to the door and noiselessly unlatched it. "Wait a bit!" said Lincott. Helling stopped anxiously in the doorway. "Where have you slept" Lincott paused to steady his voice "for the last three weeks?" he continued. "Under arches by the river, sir," replied Helling.
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