"There's a persuasion in this world, you know, that Angels' Visits are by no means infrequent. Perhaps some of your—friends have travelled? They are supposed to come down to deserving persons in prisons, and do refined Nautches and that kind of thing. Faust business, you know."
"I've never heard of anything of the kind," said the Angel.
"Only the other day a lady whose baby was my patient for the time being—indigestion—assured me that certain facial contortions the little creature made indicated that it was Dreaming of Angels. In the novels of Mrs. Henry Wood that is spoken of as an infallible symptom of an early departure. I suppose you can't throw any light on that obscure pathological manifestation?"
"I don't understand it at all," said the Angel, puzzled, and not clearly apprehending the Doctor's drift.
("Getting huffy," said Crump to himself. "Sees I'm poking fun at him.") "There's one thing I'm curious about. Do the new arrivals complain much about their medical attendants? I've always fancied there must be a good deal of hydropathic talk just at first. I was looking at that picture in the Academy only this June.…"
"New Arrivals!" said the Angel. "I really don't follow you."
The Doctor stared. "Don't they come?"
"Come!" said the Angel. "Who?"
"The people who die here."
"After they've gone to pieces here?"
205
