r; for he
brightens up a sick room as he did the Merton station when first I set
eyes upon him. Don't imagine from my description that he is in any
way soft, however. There is no one on whom one could be less likely to
impose. He has a temper which is easily aflame and as easily appeased.
A mistake in the dispensing may wake it up and then he bursts into
the surgery like a whiff of cast wind, his checks red, his whiskers
bristling, and his eyes malignant. The daybook is banged, the bottles
rattled, the counter thumped, and then he is off again with five doors
slamming behind him. We can trace his progress when the black mood is on
him by those dwindling slams. Perhaps it is that McCarthy has labelled
the cough mixture as the eye-wash, or sent an empty pillbox with an
exhortation to take one every four hours. In any case the cyclone comes
and goes, and by the next meal all is peace once more.

I said that the patients were very homely. Any one who is over-starched
might well come here to be unstiffened. I confess that I did not quite
fall in with it at once. When on one of my first mornings a club patient
with his bottle under his arm came up to me and asked me if I were the
doctor's man, I sent him on to see the groom in the stable. But soon one
falls into the humour of it. There is no offence meant; and why should
any be taken? They are kindly, generous folk; and if they pay no respect
to your profession in the abstract, and so rather hurt your dignity,
they will be as leal and true as possible to yourself if you can win
their respect. I like the grip of their greasy and blackened hands.

Another peculiarity of the district is that many of the manufacturers
and colliery owners have risen from the workmen, and have (in some cases
at least) retained their old manners and even their old dress. The other
day Mrs. White, Horton's mother-in-law, had a violent sick headache,
and, as we are all very fond of the kind old lady, we were trying to
keep things as quiet as possible down-stairs. Suddenly there came
a bang! bang! bang! at the knocker; and then in an instant another
rattling series of knocks, as if a tethered donkey were trying to kick
in the panel. After all our efforts for silence it was exasperating. I
rushed to the door to find a seedy looking person just raising his hand
to commence a fresh bombardment. "What on earth's the matter?" I asked,
only I may have been a little more emphatic. "Pain in the jaw," said he.