--by sheer force of contrast, no doubt--to the elder of
the two swan-necked, stiff-backed Miss Townshend-Mahonys, with their
long, thin noses, and the ingrained lines that ran from the curled
nostrils to the corners of their supercilious mouths, describing a
sneer so deep that at a distance it was possible to mistake it for a
smile. "Beer, my dear, indeed and there are worse things in the world
than beer!" he heard his mother declare in her biting way. "By all
means take him! You can wash yourself in it if water gets scarce, and
I'll place my kitchen orders with you." Lucinda, who had perhaps
sniffed timidly at release, burnt crimson: thank you! she would rather
eat rat-bane.--He supposed they pinched and scraped along as of
old--the question of money was never broached between him and them.
Prior to his marriage he had sent them what he could; but that little
was in itself an admission of failure. They made no inquiries about his
mode of life, preferring it to remain in shadow; enough for them that
he had not amassed a fortune. Had that come to pass, they might have
pardoned the rude method of its making--in fancy he listened to the
witty, cutting, self-derisive words, in which they would have alluded
to his success.

Lying back in his chair he thought of them thus, without unkindliness,
even with a dash of humour. That was possible, now that knocking about
the world had rubbed off some of his own corners. In his young days,
he, too, had been hot and bitter. What, however, to another might have
formed the chief crux in their conduct--it was by squandering such
money as there was, his own portion among it, on his scamp of an elder
brother, that they had forced him into the calling they despised--this
had not troubled him greatly. For medicine was the profession on which
his choice would anyhow have fallen. And to-night the book that lay
before him had infected him with the old enthusiasm. He re-lived those
days when a skilfully handled case of PLACENTA PREVIA, or a successful
delivery in the fourth position, had meant more to him than the Charge
of the Light Brigade.

Fresh from this dip into the past, this foretaste of the future, he
turned in good heart to business. An inventory had to be taken; damaged
goods cleared out; a list of bad and less bad debts drawn up: he and
Hempel were hard at work all next day. The result was worse even than
he had expected. His outlay that summer--ever since the day on which he
had s