"You needn't make such a noise," said I; "other people are ill besides
you." "If I pay my money, young man, I'll make such noise as I like."
And actually in cold blood he commenced a fresh assault upon the door.
He would have gone on with his devil's tattoo all morning if I had not
led him down the path and seen him off the premises. An hour afterwards
Horton whirled into the surgery, with a trail of banged doors behind
him. "What's this about Mr. Usher, Munro?" he asked. "He says that you
were violent towards him." "There was a club patient here who kept on
banging the knocker," said I; "I was afraid that he would disturb Mrs.
White, and so I made him stop." Horton's eyes began to twinkle. "My
boy," said he, "that club patient, as you call him, is the richest man
in Merton, and worth a hundred a year to me." I have no doubt that he
appeased him by some tale of my disgrace and degradation; but I have not
heard anything of the matter since.

It has been good for me to be here, Bertie. It has brought me in close
contact with the working classes, and made me realise what fine people
they are. Because one drunkard goes home howling on a Saturday night,
we are too apt to overlook the ninety-nine decent folk by their own
firesides. I shall not make that mistake any more. The kindliness of the
poor to the poor makes a man sick of himself. And their sweet patience!
Depend upon it, if ever there is a popular rising, the wrongs which lead
to it must be monstrous and indefensible. I think the excesses of the
French Revolution are dreadful enough in themselves, but much more so as
an index to the slow centuries of misery against which they were a mad
protest. And then the wisdom of the poor! It is amusing to read the glib
newspaper man writing about the ignorance of the masses. They don't
know the date of Magna Charta, or whom John of Gaunt married; but put
a practical up-to-date problem before them, and see how unerringly they
take the right side. Didn't they put the Reform Bill through in the
teeth of the opposition of the majority of the so-called educated
classes? Didn't they back the North against the South when nearly all
our leaders went wrong? When universal arbitration and the suppression
of the liquor traffic comes, is it not sure to be from the pressure of
these humble folks? They look at life with clearer and more unselfish
eyes. It's an axiom, I think, that to heighten a nation's wisdom you
must lower its franchise.