"Doyle, Arthur Conan - Round The Red Lamp" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

his shoulder with a hand which was spotted over with
curious little white blisters.

"It's a fine carbuncle," said the clerk, with the
air of a connoisseur who describes his orchids to one
who can appreciate them. "It's on his back and the
passage is draughty, so we must not look at it, must
we, daddy? Pemphigus," he added carelessly, pointing
to the woman's disfigured hands. "Would you care to
stop and take out a metacarpal?"

"No, thank you. We are due at Archer's. Come
on!" and they rejoined the throng which was hurrying
to the theatre of the famous surgeon.

The tiers of horseshoe benches rising from the
floor to the ceiling were already packed, and the
novice as he entered saw vague curving lines of
faces in front of him, and heard the deep buzz of a
hundred voices, and sounds of laughter from somewhere
up above him. His companion spied an opening on the
second bench, and they both squeezed into it.

"This is grand!" the senior man whispered.
"You'll have a rare view of it all."

Only a single row of heads intervened between
them and the operating table. It was of unpainted
deal, plain, strong, and scrupulously clean. A sheet
of brown water-proofing covered half of it, and
beneath stood a large tin tray full of sawdust. On
the further side, in front of the window, there was a
board which was strewed with glittering instruments--
forceps, tenacula, saws, canulas, and trocars. A
line of knives, with long, thin, delicate blades, lay
at one side. Two young men lounged in front of this,
one threading needles, the other doing something to a
brass coffee-pot-like thing which hissed out puffs of
steam.

"That's Peterson," whispered the senior, "the
big, bald man in the front row. He's the skin-
grafting man, you know. And that's Anthony Browne,
who took a larynx out successfully last winter. And
there's Murphy, the pathologist, and Stoddart, the
eye-man. You'll come to know them all soon."

"Who are the two men at the table?"

"Nobody--dressers. One has charge of the