The cobbler, a brave old hero himself, though unaneled and unsung, went
privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen
had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system was such
that the work was almost entirely done by casual hands. The cobbler told
them the man's desperate plight, old, broken, dying, without help or
money, reminded them that he had worked for them thirty years, and asked
them to do something for him.
"Oh," said the manager, remembering Dan Cullen without having to refer to
the books, "you see, we make it a rule never to help casuals, and we can
do nothing."
Nor did they do anything, not even sign a letter asking for Dan Cullen's
admission to a hospital. And it is not so easy to get into a hospital in
London Town. At Hampstead, if he passed the doctors, at least four
months would elapse before he could get in, there were so many on the
books ahead of him. The cobbler finally got him into the Whitechapel
Infirmary, where he visited him frequently. Here he found that Dan
Cullen had succumbed to the prevalent feeling, that, being hopeless, they
were hurrying him out of the way. A fair and logical conclusion, one
must agree, for an old and broken man to arrive at, who has been
resolutely "disciplined" and "drilled" for ten years.
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