A very
low place, this surgery; you had to go down a step or two, and then
plunge into a low door. In the time of the last tenant it had been used
as a garden tool-house. It was a tolerably large room, and had a
tolerably small window, which was in front, the door being on the side,
opposite the side entrance of the house. A counter ran along the room at
the back, and a table, covered with miscellaneous articles, stood on the
right. Shelves were ranged completely round the room aloft, and a pair
of steps, used for getting down the jars and bottles, rested in a
corner. There was another room behind it, used exclusively by Dr. West.
Seated on the counter, pounding desperately away at something in a
mortar, as if his life depended on it, was a peculiar-looking gentleman
in shirt-sleeves. Very tall, very thin, with legs and arms that bore the
appearance of being too long even for his tall body, great hands and
feet, a thin face dark and red, a thin aquiline nose, black hair, and
black prominent eyes that seemed to be always on the stare--there sat
he, his legs dangling and his fingers working.
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