A friend in need is a friend indeed;
If you find him, own his worth;
He has never a word, but 'tis always God speed,
From the east to west, from south to north;
Do good to all, and do evil to none,
And do to others,—what should be done.
CHAPTER XIII.
A Daisy Cutter, with his Varieties.
In the month of July, 1780, Doctor Geoffery Gambado was visited, from Birmingham, by the celebrated cutler, Mr. John Green, a gentleman who had become uncommonly dyspeptic from a great excrescence, wart, or wen, that grew out of his right temple, almost covering his ear. It gave him no particular pain, except when he chanced to recline upon that part of his head; yet, as every body looked at it, who came into his shop, and when he appeared at church, or in any public place, he grew uncommonly irritable and nervous. The faculty pronounced it too large to be cut out; and, if the truth be told, Mr. Green himself had such a horror of cutting, that, though a dealer in cutlery and in the very first steel articles, he had an unconquerable distaste to the knife being used upon his own person.
Like many other good kind of men, he dealt in articles that others might use; but he himself had no wish to use them. Those who use the sinews of men, that is, of other men, for their own speculative purposes, and actually abhor the use of the very things they sell, should be careful of the exciting, inciting, or foolish words they utter, lest their language should superinduce others to use those articles in which their traffic is, to their own destruction. Mr. Burton, the great Quaker, was a dealer in Burton ale to a great extent, though he was himself a rigidly abstemious man; yet, as his trade was a good one, and paid well both in the north and south, he could afford to give considerable sums to temperance, or even total abstinence societies, without feeling any loss in his trade. The fact is, until the bright men of traffic shall find out that the ruling principle of their souls is coveteousness, they will never reform the world by a spurious profusion of words and calculations, which have only that one principle to appeal to as their own support.
Mr. Green dealt in swords, and knives and forks, in guns and pistols, in lancets and razors; but he would not suffer the lancet or the knife to touch his own flesh. He was a dealer in weapons, not in blows. A man of peace, yet, like many a man styling himself a friend to humanity, and assuming apostolic liberty, he could find fault with every thing and every body; yet, for trade's sake, he had no objection to the demand for swords, guns, or pistols. He could supply the government with any quantity from his stores in Birmingham.
It must be confessed, that his nervous affection, and melancholy disposition arose more from the wart upon his brow, and all its external irritations, than from any qualms of conscience, arising from any kind of self examination, self accusation, or self condemnation. Few men's consciences so trouble them in the day of their prosperity.
He was recommended to consult the great nervous Doctor of the age, Doctor Gambado. So he went to town, had an interview with the Doctor, described all his agitating ails, and received this advice:
"Ride on horseback."