“Well, what about him?”
“A needs a merry-Andrew, so to speak.”
“I fail to smoke you, friend.”
“One to play outside his door and attract custom.”
“Ah!”
He thought he understood. It was being suggested that he should devote his gift to the services of an empiric, by drawing, siren-like, chance patients to his lure.
Well, why not? There was no moral degradation implied in the business. This Salvator might be a perfectly honest practitioner; and in any case his own art would be used for no purpose baser than its wont—to procure him, that was to say, a profitable audience. And with that his responsibility would cease. The issue, for Salvator, would be his own affair. He thought of the comparative rest implied, of his empty pockets.
“What sayest thou, Grisel?” said he.
The little she ass grunted—a small purr of affection.
“Would he make it worth my while?” asked Jack of the pallid rogue.