Читать книгу Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters - Daniel Stashower, Исмаил Шихлы - Страница 117

Rain, Rain. Nothing but rain, splashing in the streets, and gurgling in the gutters, everything sloppy and muddy, that’s my experience of Birmingham. The houses are of a horrid brick colour, the streets are yellow, the sky is leaden. What other grumbles have I to grumble? Nothing else I think, and I have a good deal to say on the other side of the question. The Free Libraries are splendid, the people are pleasant, everything is cheap, Dr Drummond is a regular brick, Hoare is another, and Madam is a female of the same genus; on the whole I am very comfortable indeed. The things are cheap with a vengeance, I never saw anything like it.

Bourchier is got up ‘a la Brum’ regardless of expense, he has a smoking cap, a blue serge suit, neat boots, lavender necktie. Here is the little bill he had to pay for them, and mind they are really nice looking

Smoking Cap 81/2d

Serge Suit 25/

Walking Boots 10/6

Necktie 1/

Not a bad investment on the whole. I got a very pleasant chatty eight pager from Jimmy which I shall duly answer. It quite raised my spirits—not that they were below par originally.

Dr Drummond is a very good fellow, we split a bottle of champagne and had a very pleasant evening. I’ll try and get over to G[amgee] since you wish it, tho’ I dont see how I am to manage it. You see we have breakfast at 9, then until 10.30 I am attending to patients, after that I have nothing much to do until dinner at 2, but those are just the hours when every doctor is out. After dinner I write out all H’s visits, and make up bottles until tea at 6. Then till eight are our consulting hours and after that I am generally free. I work pretty hard for my £2, I think.

I did rather a foolish thing the other day. A little German called Gleiwitz, a doctor and professor, and one of the very first Arabian and Sanskrit scholars in Europe, comes here to give Mrs H German lessons. He is a man of European name, but he has lost money in speculation and came at last to such a pass that Mrs H is the only pupil he has, and on what she pays him he keeps himself, and 3 children. Last time he was here he drew me aside, and told me with tears in his eyes that his children were starving at home, had had no breakfast, and could I help him to keep his head above water for a week or so, when he hoped he would have an opening. I told him I was as poor a man as he, ‘barrin’ the children, that I had only 1/6 in the world, but that I would do what I could; So I gave him my watch and chain and told him to go and pop them, which I am bound to say he was very unwilling to do. However he sailed away with them at last, and I hope got something decent for them. I think he is an honest man, he certainly is a very learned one. My best way would be to get the ticket from him when I get my money, and rescue the watch, and then stand my chance of his paying the money back to me.

Why don’t you write oftener & longer Eh?