"
"Well," said old Timothy, "'tis a strange thing about doctors that
the worse they be the better they be. I mean that if you hear
anything of this sort about 'em, ten to one they can cure ye as
nobody else can."
"True," said Bawtree, emphatically. "And for my part I shall take
my custom from old Jones and go to this one directly I've anything
the matter with me. That last medicine old Jones gave me had no
taste in it at all."
Mr. Melbury, as became a well-informed man, did not listen to
these recitals, being moreover preoccupied with the business
appointment which had come into his head. He walked up and down,
looking on the floor--his usual custom when undecided. That
stiffness about the arm, hip, and knee-joint which was apparent
when he walked was the net product of the divers sprains and over-
exertions that had been required of him in handling trees and
timber when a young man, for he was of the sort called self-made,
and had worked hard. He knew the origin of every one of these
cramps: that in his left shoulder had come of carrying a pollard,
unassisted, from Tutcombe Bottom home; that in one leg was caused
by the crash of an elm against it when they were felling; that in
the other was from lifting a bole.
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