edna shout."

"My face is red with exposure to all weathers, attending ignorant
people like you. I never touch alcohol in any form."

"No, an' I dunna. I drink a drop o' beer, if that's what you ca'
touchin' alcohol. An' I'm none th' wuss for it, tha sees."

"You've heard what I've told you."

"Ah, I have."

"And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself.
_I_ shan't attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs.
Larrick"--this to the wife.

"I do, doctor. And I know it's true what you say. An' I'm at him
night an' day about it--"

"Oh well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He
mustn't think _I'm_ going to be running after him, if he disobeys my
orders." And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to
complain.

None the less the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell.
If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to
hear the housewife chuntering.

"Oh my lawk, come in nurse! What a day! Doctor's not been yet. And
he's bound to come now I've just cleaned up, trapesin' wi' his gret
feet. He's got the biggest understandin's of any man i' Lancaster.
My husband says they're the best pair o' pasties i' th' kingdom. An'
he does make such a mess, for he never stops to wipe his feet on th'
mat, marches straight up your clean stairs--"

"Why don't you tell him to wipe his feet?" said Alvina.

"Oh my word! Fancy me telling him! He'd jump down my throat with
both feet afore I'd opened my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, he
isn't. He's my-lord, he is. You mustn't look, or you're done for."

Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for browbeating them,
and having a heart over and above.

Sometimes he was given a good hit--though nearly always by a man. It
happened he was in a workman's house when the man was at dinner.

"Canna yer gi'e a man summat better nor this 'ere pap, Missis?" said
the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding.

"Oh go on," cried the wife. "I hadna time for owt else." Dr.
Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway.

"Rice pudding!" he exclaimed largely. "You couldn't have anything
more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day of my
life--every day of my life, I do."

The man was eating his pudding and pearling his big moustache
copiously with it. He did not answer.

"Do you doctor!" cried the woman. "And never no different."

"Never," said the doctor.

"Fancy that! You