"
To which, what between bodily fear and real good-nature, old Heale
assented; and so ended that eventful night.
CHAPTER IV.
FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND.
About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr.
Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every
lion, poor as well as rich,--in country as in town, must needs have
his jackal.
Heale's surgery--or, in plain English, shop--was a doleful hole
enough; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected from a drunken
occupant, with a practice which was only not decaying because there
was no rival in the field. But monopoly made the old man, as it makes
most men, all the more lazy and careless; and there was not a drug on
his shelves which could be warranted to work the effect set forth in
that sanguine and too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like
Mr. Pecksniff's England, expects every man to do his duty, and is,
accordingly (as the Lancet and Dr. Letheby know too well), grievously
disappointed.
In this kennel of evil savours, Heale was slowly trying to poke things
into something like order; and dragging out a few old drugs with a
shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, in a vague expectation
that something must needs have happened to somebody the night before,
which would require somewhat of his art.
And he was not disappointed. Gentleman Jan, without taking his pipe
out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on the counter, and his
black-fringed chin on his fists; took a look round the shop, as if to
find something which would suit him; and then--
"I say, Doctor, gi's some tackleum.
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