IX. ADVENTURE OF THE LADY NOVELIST AND THE VACCINATIONIST
‘Mr. Frederick Warren’—so Merton read the card presented to him on a salver of Limoges enamel by the office-boy.
‘Show the gentleman in.’
Mr. Warren entered. He was a tall and portly person, with a red face, red whiskers, and a tightly buttoned frock-coat, which more expressed than hid his goodly and prominent proportions. He bowed, and Merton invited him to be seated. It struck Merton as a singular circumstance that his visitor wore on each arm the crimson badge of the newly vaccinated.
Mr. Warren sat down, and, taking a red silk handkerchief out of the crown of his hat, he wiped his countenance. The day was torrid, and Mr. Merton hospitably offered an effervescent draught.
‘Without the whisky, if you please, sir,’ said Mr. Warren, in a provincial accent. He pointed to a blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his coat, indicating that he was conscientiously opposed to the use of alcoholic refreshment in all its forms.
‘Two glasses of Apollinaris water,’ said Merton to the office-boy; and the innocent fluid was brought,
while Merton silently admired his client’s arrangement in blue and crimson. When the thirst of that gentleman had been assuaged, he entered upon business thus:
‘Sir, I am a man of principle!’
Merton congratulated him; the age was lax, he said, and principle was needed. He wondered internally what he was going to be asked to subscribe to, or whether his vote only was required.