His reflections carried him to the bridge-end, where, in the porch of the Old Doctor’s house, he encountered Mrs Polsue.

“Ah!  Good morning, ma’am!  We are bound for the same door, it appears?  That’s to say if, as I seem to remember, a man called Nanjivell lives here?”

“He does,” Mrs Polsue answered.  “And if I may make bold to say so, it’s high time!”

“Eh? . . .  Are you looking after him?  I’d no idea that he was really sick.”

“No more haven’t I,” said Mrs Polsue.  “But I’ll say ’tis time somebody looked after him, if I say no more.  In point of fact,” she added, “I’m not seeing Nicholas Nanjivell, but a woman called Penhaligon who lives in the other tenement here.  Her husband was called up last Saturday.”

“What, are you ladies at work already?”

“Oh, I don’t let the grass grow under my feet,” said Mrs Polsue.

“Damn the woman, I suppose that’s a slap at me,” muttered Dr Mant to himself.  But he tapped on the Penhaligons’ door for her very politely.

“Thank you,” she said.  “That’s Nanjivell’s door, at the end of the passage.”

He bowed and went on, came to the door, paused for a glance at the padlock hitched loose on the staple, knocked, and—­as his custom was when visiting the poor—­walked in briskly, scarce waiting for an answer.

“Hullo!”

Between him and the small window, almost blocking the light—­on a platform constructed of three planks and a couple of chairs set face to face—­stood Nicky-Nan, with a trowel in one hand and a bricklayer’s board in the other, surprised in the act of plastering his parlour ceiling.

“Had an accident here?” asked Dr Mant, eyeing the job critically.  “Old house tumbling about your ears?”

“No . . . yes—­that’s to say—­” stammered Nicky-Nan; then he seemed to swallow down something, and so to make way for a pent-up fury.  “Who sent for ’ee?  Who told ’ee to walk in like that without knockin’? . . . That’s what I ask—­Who sent for ’ee here? I didn!”

“What in thunder’s wrong with ye?” asked the Doctor, very coolly taking a third chair, seating himself astraddle on it, and crossing his arms over the top.  “No harm to be taken patching up a bit of plaster, is there?” Again he eyed the ceiling.

“I—­I beg your pardon, Doctor,” answered Nicky-Nan, recollecting himself.  “But I live pretty lonely here, and the children—­”

“So that’s why you put a padlock on the door? . . .  Well, I’m not a child.  And though you didn’t send for me, somebody else did.  Mr Johns, the Custom House Officer at Troy.  He wants to know why you didn’t go with the rest of the Reserve last Sunday.”

Nicky-Nan blazed up again.  “Then you can tell ’en I can’t nor I won’t—­not if he cuts me in little pieces, I won’t!  Curse this War, an’ Johns ’pon the top of it!  Can’t you see—­”