Dr. Veiga rose from his chair and deliberately sat down on the side of his patient's bed. The gesture in itself was sufficiently unprofessional, but he capped it with another of which probably no doctor had ever been guilty in a British sick-room before; he pulled out a pocket-knife and became his own manicure, surveying his somewhat neglected hands with a benevolently critical gaze, smiling at them as if to say: "What funny hands you are!"
And Mr. Prohack felt that the doctor was saying: "What a funny Prohack you are!"
"My friend," said Dr. Veiga at length (with his voice), "my friend, I will not conceal from you that your alarm was justified. You are suffering from one of the commonest and one of the gravest mental derangements. I'm surprised, but there it is. You haven't yet discovered that it's the earth you're living on. You fancy it may be Sirius, Uranus, Aldebaran or Jupiter—let us say Jupiter. Perhaps in one of these worlds matters are ordered differently, and their truth is not our truth; but let me assure you that the name of your planet is the Earth and that on the earth one great unalterable truth prevails. Namely:—You can't do this"—here Dr. Veiga held up a pared and finished finger and wagged it to and fro with solemnity—"you can't do this without moving your finger ... You were aware of this great truth? Then why are you upset because you can't wag your finger without moving it?... Perhaps I'm being too subtle for you. Let me put the affair in another way. You've lost sight of the supreme earthly fact that everything has not merely a consequence, but innumerable consequences. You knew when you married that you were creating endless consequences, and now you want to limit the consequences. You knew when you accepted a fortune that you were creating endless consequences, and now you want to limit them too. You want to alter the rules after the game has started. You set in motion circumstances which were bound to influence the development of the members of your family, and when the inevitable new developments begin, you object, simply because you hadn't foreseen them. You knew that money doesn't effectively exist until it's spent and that you can't spend money without causing consequences, and when your family causes consequences by bringing the money to life you complain that you're a martyr to the consequences and that you hadn't bargained for complications. My poor friend, you have made one crucial mistake in your career,—the mistake of being born. Happily the mistake is curable. I can give you several prescriptions. The first is prussic acid. If you don't care for that you can donate the whole of your fortune to the Sinking Fund for extinguishing the National Debt and you can return to the Treasury. If you don't care for that you can leave your family mysteriously and go and live in Timbuctoo by yourself. If you don't care for that you can buy a whip and forbid your wife and daughter to grow older or change in any way on pain of a hundred lashes. And if you don't like that you can acquaint yourself with the axioms that neither you nor anybody else are the centre of the universe and that what you call complications are simply another name for life itself. Worry is life, and life is worry. And the absence of worry is death. I won't say to you that you're rich and beloved and therefore you've nothing to worry about. I'll say to you, you've got a lot to worry about because you're rich and beloved.... I'll leave the other hand for to-morrow." Dr. Veiga snapped down the blade of the pocket-knife.
"Platitudes!" ejaculated Mr. Prohack.
"Certainly," agreed the quack. "But I've told you before that it's by telling everybody what everybody knows that I earn my living."
"I'll get up," said Mr. Prohack.
"And not too soon," said the quack. "Get up by all means and deal with your worries. All worries can be dealt with."
"It doesn't make life any better," said Mr. Prohack.
"Nothing makes life any better, except death—and there's a disgusting rumour that there is no death. Where shall I find a pencil, my dear fellow? I've forgotten mine, and I want to prescribe Mrs. Prohack's tonic."
"In the boudoir there," said Mr. Prohack. "What the deuce are you smiling at?"