“No, Mrs Slee. It’s medicine, not surgery to-day;” and the woman backed out, looking a little less angular and sad than a few weeks before.
“I’m a regular quack, Maine, you see,” said the vicar, smiling, as he poured into a great soda-water glass a certain quantity of tincture, added to it a couple of table-spoonfuls of brandy, and so much granulated magnesia, to which, when Mrs Slee returned, he poured about half a pint of pure cold well water. “There’s a dose for you, my man,” he said, as he passed it to John Maine, “that will set you right in an hour. Now, Mrs Slee, any one been?”
“Yes, Bulger’s girl’s been here with a bottle for some wine,” said Mrs Slee shortly, for “sir” and a respectful tone were still strangers to her tongue.
“Bring the bottle in. Any one else?”
“Maidens’s boy says you promised his mother some tea.”
“So I did,” said the vicar, opening a large canister, from which he took a packet which scented the room with its fragrance. “There it is. Now then, who else?”
“Old Mumby’s wife has come for some more wine.”
“Then she’ll go back without it, Mrs Slee. Do you see that,” he continued, giving her a strange look; “that’s the peculiar sign that used to be in vogue amongst the ancients. That’s the gnostic wink, Mrs Slee, and means too much. I won’t send a spoonful. That wicked old woman drank every drop of the last herself, Mrs Slee, I’ll make affidavit. She wouldn’t stir across the room to wait on her poor old husband, and yet she’ll come nearly a mile to fetch that wine. I’ll take it myself, and give it the poor old boy, and see him drink it before I come away. Tell her I’ll bring it down, Mrs Slee; but don’t say I called her a wicked old woman.”
“Oh, I’m not going to chatter. Do you think I should be such a ghipes?” said Mrs Slee, rudely.
“Not knowing what a ghipes is, I cannot say, Mrs Slee,” said the vicar; “but you are not perfect, Mrs Slee—not perfect. Soup. You have that last soup on your conscience!”