It was the
lady from the coal shop in Fleur-de-Lys Court.
"Good evening, Mrs. Jablett," I said briskly; "not come about yourself,
I hope."
"Yes, I have," she answered, rising and following me gloomily into the
consulting-room; and then, when I had seated her in the patient's chair
and myself at the writing-table, she continued: "It's my inside, you
know, Doctor."
The statement lacked anatomical precision and merely excluded the domain
of the skin specialist. I accordingly waited for enlightenment and
speculated on the watercress-beds, while Mrs. Jablett regarded me
expectantly with a dim and watery eye.
"Ah!" I said, at length; "it's your--your inside, is it, Mrs. Jablett?"
"Yus. _And_ my 'ead," she added, with a voluminous sigh that filled the
apartment with odorous reminiscences of "unsweetened."
"Your head aches, does it?"
"Somethink chronic!" said Mrs. Jablett. "Feels as if it was a-opening
and a-shutting, a-opening and a-shutting, and when I sit down I feel as
if I should _bust_."
This picturesque description of her sensations--not wholly inconsistent
with her figure--gave the clue to Mrs.
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