“Very true—as an ordinary rule,” acquiesced Dr. Knox. “And now, how can I help you in this trouble?”
“In this trouble?—not at all,” returned Mr. Tamlyn, rousing himself, and speaking energetically, as if he meant to put the thought behind him. “This trouble no earthly being can aid me in, Arnold; and I don’t think there’s any one but yourself I’d speak to of it: it lies too deep, you see; it wrings the soul. I could die of this trouble: I only fret at the other.”
“And what is the other?”
“Shuttleworth won’t stay.”
“Won’t he!”
“Shuttleworth says the kind of practice is not what he has been accustomed to, and the work’s too hard, and he does not care how soon he leaves it. And yet Dockett has come on surprisingly, and takes his share now. The fact is, Arnold, Shuttleworth is just as lazy as he can hang together: he’d like to treat a dozen rose-water patients a-day, and go through life easily. My belief is, he means to do it.”
“But that will scarcely bring grist to his mill, will it?” cried Dr. Knox.
“His mill doesn’t want grist; there’s the worst of it,” said Tamlyn. “The man was not badly off when he came here: but since then his only brother must go and die, and Shuttleworth has come into all his money. A thousand a-year, if it’s a penny.”
“Then, I certainly don’t wonder at his wanting to give up the practice,” returned the doctor, with a smile.
“That’s not all,” grumbled old Tamlyn. “He wants to take away Bessy.”