The man stopped short in the middle of the street, with a cunning leer on his face. The change of purpose supported his belief that a May-day jest was forward.
"Call me plain Jock Dean, mistress," he said. "And now tell me further, wilt have a doctor of laws, of divinity, or of physic. We be in a merry mood and a generous to-day, and will fetch forth bachelors, masters, doctors, proctors, and all degrees from Oxford, Cambridge, or London at a wink's notice. So say your will."
Rebecca would have returned a sharp reply to this banter, but she was very anxious to find a physician for Phœbe, and so thought it best to take a coaxing course.
"What I want's a doctor," she said. "I think my sister's got the shakes or suthin', an' I must take her to the doctor. Now look here—you look like a nice kind of a young man. I know it's some kind of antiques and horribles day 'round here, an' all the folks hes on funny clothes and does nothin' on'y joke a body. But let's drop comical talk jest fer a minute an' get down to sense, eh?"
She spoke pleadingly, and for a moment Jock looked puzzled. He only understood a portion of what she was saying, but he realized that she was in some sort of trouble.
"Why bait the man with silly questions, Rebecca," Phœbe broke in. "A truce to this silly talk of apothecaries. I have no need of surgeons, I. My good fellow," she continued, addressing Jock with an air of condescension that dumfounded her sister, "is not yonder the Southwark pillory?"
"Ay, mistress," he replied, with a grin. "It's there you may see the selectman your serving-maid inquired for."
Rebecca gasped and clinched her hands fiercely on her bag and umbrella.
"Serving-maid!" she cried.
"Ahoy—whoop—room! Yi—ki yi!"