He found the viveur of the previous night propped up on his pillows, a towel round his shaven head, a pencil and paper on the counterpane before him. At the dressing-table stood a little common man, in a scratch wig and with a very blue chin, who mixed some powders with small-beer in a tumbler.
“You won’t thank me for introducing you,” said Sheridan to Ned. “Monsieur has not le haut rang (spare thy concern), nor any word of our tongue.”
“Who is he?” said Ned.
“My physician.”
“The deuce he is!”
“Ah! I am under the influence here of a democratic atmosphere. No hand-muffs and silver-headed canes in the economics of Egalité. In Rome, as Rome. Monsieur is, in fact, a beast-leech attached to the household to teach mesdemoiselles how to put Pompon’s tail in splints when it has been caught in the parlour door. He can bleed, rowel, and drench; shoe a horse, or salt a pig. And, egad! now I think on’t, there is his right use to me. For, when a man has made a hog of himself, what better physician does he need than him that hath the knowledge how to cure bacon?”
Deprecatory of the applause that he waited a moment to secure, he called over to the little man by the table: “Dépêche-toi, monsieur! ma gorge est en feu!”
“Attendez, monsieur, attendez!” replied the leech in a thin, hoarse voice: “ayez encore un peu de patience, je vous prie.”
He brought the cup over in a moment. Sheridan sent the liquid hissing down his throat. He gave a sigh of pleasure.
“Ah!” he said, “small-beer and absolution were invented by the devil to tempt men to sin for the sake of the ecstasy of relief they bring.”