“A most extraordinary thing, Falkland. He went down as though he’d been poleaxed. Never a cry or a struggle. Just dropped down dead.”
Robert Falkland lighted another cigarette and put his paper down on the grass beside him. He was not particularly interested in Major Grendon’s story. Grendon was a bore and most men avoided him—and his anecdotes—if they could, but on this occasion he was obviously determined to tell his story, and the story had at least the merit of being at first hand—not one of those intolerable “so the fella told me” variety.
Falkland and Grendon were fellow patients in a clinic run by Max Brook, the osteopath—“a damned quack” Grendon called the latter practitioner but, quack or not, Brook succeeded in curing or alleviating many disorders for which orthodox practitioners were unable to find a remedy.