"
The next day Mr. Gambit was told that Lydgate went about saying
physic was of no use.
"Indeed!" said he, lifting his eyebrows with cautious surprise.
(He was a stout husky man with a large ring on his fourth finger.)
"How will he cure his patients, then?"
"That is what I say," returned Mrs. Mawmsey, who habitually gave
weight to her speech by loading her pronouns. "Does _he_ suppose
that people will pay him only to come and sit with them and go
away again?"
Mrs. Mawmsey had had a great deal of sitting from Mr. Gambit,
including very full accounts of his own habits of body and other affairs;
but of course he knew there was no innuendo in her remark, since his
spare time and personal narrative had never been charged for.
So he replied, humorously--
"Well, Lydgate is a good-looking young fellow, you know."
"Not one that I would employ," said Mrs. Mawmsey. "_Others_
may do as they please."
Hence Mr. Gambit could go away from the chief grocer's without
fear of rivalry, but not without a sense that Lydgate was one
of those hypocrites who try to discredit others by advertising
their own honesty, and that it might be worth some people's while
to show him up. Mr. Gambit, however, had a satisfactory practice,
much pervaded by the smells of retail trading which suggested
the reduction of cash payments to a balance.
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