Tom. Well, I’m sure I don’t know what to do; I’m at my wits’ end.
Mat. Then it’s the beginning end, and there’s hope for ye yet. (Knock.)
Tom. Who’s that?
Mat. There, now, if it ain’t your friend Whipple’s carriage!
Tom. Whipple! Whipple with a carriage! A fool, an impostor, a quack, with a carriage! What does he want to come flaunting his one-horse fly in my face for? There, I actually did that man’s botany papers for him at the College, and now he’s rolling in fever patients,—literally rolling in fever patients,—while I haven’t one to my back!
Mat. Well, maybe he’ll help ye if ye ask him. He’s a pleasant man.
Tom. Pleasant, is he? I don’t know what you call pleasant. Why, there’s a squalid old pauper idiot, a patient of his, who’s got no name of his own, and Whipple christened him Tom Cobb, because he says he’s the ugliest old lunatic he ever saw and reminds him of me. And all the boys in the neighbourhood have taken it up, and he’s been known as Tom Cobb for the last two years. That’s pleasant of Whipple.
Mat. Sure, it’s his joke.
Tom. Yes, I know it’s his joke, but I don’t like his joke. One Tom Cobb’s enough at a time, and—(taking out pistol)—if I was only quite, quite sure I knew how to load it, I’d snuff one of ’em out this minute. I would; upon my word and honour, I would!
[Exit Cobb.