“Museum?” said I.
“Ah, that’s it,” said she.
“He can’t have much practice,” I said, “if he goes racing and chasing over the country that way, like a run-away engine.”
“He don’t want it, Sir,” she replied, “he is very well off. He says he is one of the richest men in the country, for he don’t spend half his income, and that any man who does that is wealthy. He says he ain’t a doctor. Whether he is or not, I don’t know; but he makes wonderful cures. Nothing in the world makes him so angry as when anybody sends for him that can afford a doctor, for he don’t take pay. Now, this morning he stormed, and raved, and stamped, and foamed at the mouth, as if he was mad; he fairly swore, a thing I never heard him do before; and he seized the hammer that he chips off stones with, and threatened the man so who come for him, that he stood with the door in his hand, while he begged him to go.
“‘Oh, Sir,’ said he, ‘the Squire will die if you don’t go.’
“‘Let him die, then,’ he replied, ‘and be hanged. What is it to me? It serves him right. Why didn’t he send for Doctor Smith, and pay him? Does he think I am a going to rob that man of his living? Be off, Sir, off with you. Tell him I can’t come, and won’t come, and do you go for a magistrate to make his will.’
“As soon as the man quitted the house, his fit left him.
“‘Well,” said he, ‘Peter, I suppose we musn’t let the man perish after all; but I wish he hadn’t sent for me, especially just now, for I want to have a long talk with Mr Slick.’
“And he and father set off immediately through the woods.”
“Suppose we beat up his quarters,” said I, “Jessie. I should like to see his house and collection, amazingly.”