If he refuses to examine into the credentials, the fault
is his, not mine. I really do not wish to be hard; but would not you
do the same, if any one refused to employ you, because he chose to
deny that you were a legally qualified practitioner?"
"Not so badly put; but what should I do in that case? Go on quietly
curing his neighbours, till he began to alter his mind as to my
qualifications, and came in to be cured himself. But here's this
difference between you and me. I am not bound to attend to any one who
don't send for me; while you think that you are, and carry the notion
a little too far, for I expect you to kill yourself by it some day."
"Well?" said Frank, with something of that lazy Oxford tone, which is
intended to save the speaker the trouble of giving his arguments, when
he has already made up his mind, or thinks that he has so done.
"Well, if I thought myself bound to doctor the man, willy-nilly, as
you do, I would certainly go to him, and show him, at least, that I
understood his complaint. That would be the first step towards his
letting me cure him. How else on earth do you fancy that Paul cured
those Corinthians about whom I have been reading lately?"
"Are you, too, going to quote Scripture against me? I am glad to find
that your studies extend to St. Paul."
"To tell you the truth, your sermon last Sunday puzzled me. I could
not comprehend (on your showing) how Paul got that wonderful influence
over those pagans which he evidently had; and as how to get influence
is a very favourite study of mine, I borrowed the book when I went
home, and read for myself; and the matter at last seemed clear enough,
on Paul's own showing.
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