“Are there?” asked Wimpole, carelessly. “Well, there certainly are two very close to each other just over there.”
“Yes, and both the same name,” replied Dalroy, “Crooke. And I saw the same Mr. Crooke chemicalizing round the corner. He seems to be a highly omnipresent deity.”
“A large business, I suppose,” observed Dorian Wimpole.
“Too large for its profits, I should say,” said Dalroy. “What can people want with two chemists of the same sort within a few yards of each other? Do they put one leg into one shop and one into the other and have their corns done in both at once? Or, do they take an acid in one shop and an alkali in the next, and wait for the fizz? Or, do they take the poison in the first shop and the emetic in the second shop? It seems like carrying delicacy too far. It almost amounts to living a double life.”
“But, perhaps,” said Dorian, “he is an uproariously popular chemist, this Mr. Crooke. Perhaps there’s a rush on some specialty of his.”
“It seems to me,” said the Captain, “that there are certain limitations to such popularity in the case of a chemist. If a man sells very good tobacco, people may smoke more and more of it from sheer self-indulgence. But I never heard of anybody exceeding in cod-liver oil. Even castor-oil, I should say, is regarded with respect rather than true affection.”
After a few minutes of silence, he said, “Is it safe to stop here for an instant, Pump?”
“I think so,” replied Humphrey, “if you’ll promise me not to have any adventures in the shop.”
The motor car stopped before yet a fourth arsenal of Mr. Crooke and his pharmacy, and Dalroy went in. Before Pump and his companion could exchange a word, the Captain came out again, with a curious expression on his countenance, especially round the mouth.
“Mr. Wimpole,” said Dalroy, “will you give us the pleasure of dining with us this evening? Many would consider it an unceremonious invitation to an unconventional meal; and it may be necessary to eat it under a hedge or even up a tree; but you are a man of taste, and one does not apologise for Hump’s rum or Hump’s cheese to persons of taste. We will eat and drink of our best tonight. It is a banquet. I am not very certain whether you and I are friends or enemies, but at least there shall be peace tonight.”