Until I got used to the novelty I was as proud as Lucifer.
The office in which I now worked had no Apollos, no literary geniuses, no
Long Jacks, no boy benedicts, such as adorned our desks at Derby, but it
rejoiced in one _rara avis_, who came a few months after and left a few
months before me. He was a middle-aged, aristocratic, kind,
good-hearted, unbusinesslike man, and was brother to a baronet. He
professed a knowledge of medicine and brought a bottle, a bolus or a
plaster, whichever he deemed best, whenever any of us complained of cold
or cough, of headache or backache or any ailment whatever. When he left
we all received from him a parting gift. Mine was a handsome, expensive,
red-felt chest protector. I wore it constantly for a year or two and,
for aught I know, it may be that by its protecting influence against the
rigour of Glasgow winters, the bituminous atmosphere of St. Rollox and
the smoke-charged fogs of the city, I am alive and well to-day. Who can
tell? It is certain that I then had a bad cough nearly always; and this
I am sure was what decided the form of his parting gift to me.
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