Valentine Williams

The Return of Clubfoot Valentine Williams

Book Excerpt: ...across the door," said a weak voice from the corner where the sick man lay; "would you be good enough to put it down? I don't want us to be disturbed...."He cast an apprehensive glance at the window. I fitted the rough beam across the door and approached the couch. It was merely a bed of maize stalks."You're very ill, I'm afraid," I said pulling over one of the boxes and seating myself by the Englishman. "Have you seen a doctor?"The vagrant waved his hand in a deprecatory manner."My dear fellow," he said--and again I noted the refinement in his voice, --"no sawbones can help me. I never held with them much anyway. Luisa got paid to-day--she washes at Bard's, you know (it was she who told me you were here)--and so I've got some medicine...."--he touched a little pannikin which stood on the floor at his side--"it's all that keeps me alive now that I can't get the 'snow!'"I recognised the name which the drug traffic gives to cocaine. The sick man was rent by.