“Yes. Nothing much the matter, but I think I do want setting up a little.”
“Come into my consulting-room, and we’ll see,” said Asher, leading the way through a dainty-looking hall, full of the tasteful collections of a man who had evidently an eye for beauty, and had turned his home into quite a little museum.
“Why, doctor,” cried Glyddyr, in astonishment, “I didn’t know you had this sort of taste?”
“Indeed? Oh, yes. Regular lover of bric-à-brac, as far as my income will allow. This way.”
The next minute he had his new patient seated in a consulting-room that was the very opposite of the mausoleum-like abode of gloom into which a London physician has his patients shown.
“Take that seat, my dear sir. Don’t be alarmed; it is not an operating chair. A man who has to exist in this out-of-the-way part of the world need have some tastes. Hum, ha! pulse, tongue, heart, lungs. Look here, my dear Mr Glyddyr, I am very glad you have called upon me, or rather called in my services.”
“What?” said Glyddyr anxiously. “You find something wrong?”
“Nothing at all, my dear sir. Just the sort of patient I like. Sound as a roach; wants a dose now and then, and can afford to pay me my fees.”
“Come, you are frank,” said Glyddyr.
“Most commendable quality in a doctor, sir. You have not been living quite so regularly lately as you should. You have some anxiety on your mind, and it has upset your digestion. Then, feeling a bit low, I should say you had been drinking some bad champagne instead of an honest drop of good Scotch whisky. That’s all.”