“Well, that is because you have eaten it all.”
“No, I haven’t; I haven’t eaten a bit for these five weeks: it’s all been used in pharmacopey, honestly used, and he can’t deny it.”
“Who used it?”
“Why, I did: he said he wouldn’t stand my eating liquorice; and I told him that I shouldn’t eat any more. No more I have, but I ain’t well, and I prescribes for myself. Haven’t I a right to do that? Mayn’t I physic myself? I am a doctor as well as he is. Who makes up all the medicine, I should like to know? who ties up the bottles and writes directions? Well, my insides are out of order, and I prescribes for myself—black draughts ‘omnes duas horas sumendum;’ and now he says that, as the ingredients are all gone, I shan’t take any more.”
“And pray what were the ingredients, Tom?”
“Why, laxative and alterative, as suits my complaint—Extract. liquor.—aqua pura—haustus.”
“And what is that?”
“Liquorice and water, to be sure; there’s nothing else I can take: I’ve tasted everything in the shop, from plate powder to aqua fortis, and everything goes against my stomach.”
“Well, Tom, it’s a hard case; but perhaps the doctor will think better of it.”
“He’d better, or I’ll set up for myself, for I won’t stand it any longer; it ain’t only for myself but for others that I care. Why, I’ve a hankering for Anny Whistle (you know her, don’t you?) a pretty little girl with red lips—lives in Church Street. Well, as long as I could bring her a bit of liquorice when I went to see her all was smooth enough, and I got many a kiss when no one was nigh; but now that I can’t fork out a bit as big as a marble, she’s getting quite shy of me, and is always walking with Bill, the butcher’s boy. I know he gives her bulls’-eyes—I seed him one day buying a ha’porth. Now, ain’t that hard?”