In Hospital - XI - Clinical

Hist? . . .     Through the corridor's echoes,     Louder and nearer     Comes a great shuffling of feet.     Quick, every one of you,     Strighten your quilts, and be decent!     Here's the Professor.     In he comes first     With the bright look we know,     From the broad, white brows the kind eyes     Soothing yet nerving you.    Here at his elbow,     White-capped, white-aproned, the Nurse,     Towel on arm and her inkstand     Fretful with quills.     Here in the ruck, anyhow,     Surging along,     Louts, duffers, exquisites, students, and prigs -     Whiskers and foreheads, scarf-pins and spectacles -     Hustles the Class!    And they ring themselves     Round the first bed, where the Chief     (His dressers and clerks at attention),     Bends in inspection already.     So shows the ring     Seen from behind round a conjurer     Doing his pitch in the street.     High shoulders, low shoulders, broad shoulders, narrow ones,     Round, square, and angular, serry and shove;     While from within a voice,     Gravely and weightily fluent,     Sounds; and then ceases; and suddenly     (Look at the stress of the shoulders!)     Out of a quiver of silence,     Over the hiss of the spray,     Comes a low cry, and the sound     Of breath quick intaken through teeth     Clenched in resolve.    And the Master     Breaks from the crowd, and goes,     Wiping his hands,     To the next bed, with his pupils     Flocking and whispering behind him.     Now one can see.     Case Number One     Sits (rather pale) with his bedclothes     Stripped up, and showing his foot     (Alas for God's Image!)     Swaddled in wet, white lint     Brilliantly hideous with red.