was why he had taken the place.  To be bearded thus in his own shop was too much for Mr. Farmiloe, he seized the opportunity of giving his wrath full swing, and burst into a frenzy of vilification.  Just as his passion reached its height (he stood with his back to the door) there entered a lady who wished to make a large purchase of disinfectants.  Alarmed and scandalised at what was going on, she had no sooner crossed the threshold than she turned again, and hurried away.  Her friends were not long in learning from her that the new chemist was a most violent man, a most disagreeable person—­the very last man one could think of doing business with.

The home was but poorly furnished, and Mr. Farmiloe had engaged a very cheap general servant, who involved him in dirt and discomfort.  It was a matter of talk among the neighbouring tradesmen that the chemist lived in a beggarly fashion.  When the dismissed errand-boy spread the story of how he had been used, people jumped to the conclusion that Mr. Farmiloe drank.  Before long there was a legend that he had been suffering from an acute attack of delirium tremens.

The post-office, always the post-office.  If he sat down at a meal the shop-bell clanged, and hope springing eternal, he hurried forth in readiness to make up a packet or concoct a mixture; but it was an old lady who held him in talk for ten minutes about rates of postage to South America.  When, by rare luck, he had a prescription to dispense (the hideous scrawl of that pestilent Dr. Bunker) in came somebody with letters and parcels which he was requested to weigh; and his hand shook so with rage that he could not resume his dispensing for the next quarter of an hour.  People asked extraordinary questions, and were surprised, offended, when he declared he could not answer them.  When could a letter be delivered at a village on the north-west coast of Ireland?  Was it true that the Post-Office contemplated a reduction of rates to Hong-Kong?  Would he explain in detail the new system of express delivery?  Invariably he betrayed impatience, and occasionally he lost his temper; people went away exclaiming what a horrid man he was!

‘Mr. What’s-your-name,’ said a shopkeeper one day, after receiving a short answer, ’I shall make it my business to complain of you to the Postmaster-General.  I don’t come here to be insulted.’

‘Who insulted you?’ returned Farmiloe like a sullen schoolboy.

‘Why, you did.  And you are always doing it.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

’If I did’—­terror stole upon the chemist’s heart—­’I didn’t mean it, and
I—­I’m sure I apologise.  It’s a way I have.’

‘A damned bad way, let me tell you.  I advise you to get out of it.’

‘I’m sorry—­’

‘So you should be.’

And the tradesman walked off, only half appeased.

Mr. Farmiloe could have shed tears in his mortification, and for some minutes he stood looking at a bottle of laudanum, wishing he had the courage to have done with life.  Plainly he could not live very long unless things improved.  His ready money was coming to an end, rents and taxes loomed before him.  An awful thought of bankruptcy haunted him in the early morning hours.