and when any lady under Mr. Pratt’s care was doing ill, she was half disposed to think that a little more active treatment’ might suit her better.  But without very definite provocation no one would take so serious a step as to part with the family doctor, for in those remote days there were few varieties of human hatred more formidable than the medical.  The doctor’s estimate, even of a confiding patient, was apt to rise and fall with the entries in the day-book; and I have known Mr. Pilgrim discover the most unexpected virtues in a patient seized with a promising illness.  At such times you might have been glad to perceive that there were some of Mr. Pilgrim’s fellow-creatures of whom he entertained a high opinion, and that he was liable to the amiable weakness of a too admiring estimate.  A good inflammation fired his enthusiasm, and a lingering dropsy dissolved him into charity.  Doubtless this crescendo of benevolence was partly due to feelings not at all represented by the entries in the day-book; for in Mr. Pilgrim’s heart, too, there was a latent store of tenderness and pity which flowed forth at the sight of suffering.  Gradually, however, as his patients became convalescent, his view of their characters became more dispassionate; when they could relish mutton-chops, he began to admit that they had foibles, and by the time they had swallowed their last dose of tonic, he was alive to their most inexcusable faults.  After this, the thermometer of his regard rested at the moderate point of friendly back-biting, which sufficed to make him agreeable in his morning visits to the amiable and worthy persons who were yet far from convalescent.

Pratt’s patients were profoundly uninteresting to Pilgrim:  their very diseases were despicable, and he would hardly have thought their bodies worth dissecting.  But of all Pratt’s patients, Mr. Jerome was the one on whom Mr. Pilgrim heaped the most unmitigated contempt.  In spite of the surgeon’s wise tolerance, Dissent became odious to him in the person of Mr. Jerome.  Perhaps it was because that old gentleman, being rich, and having very large yearly bills for medical attendance on himself and his wife, nevertheless employed Pratt—­neglected all the advantages of ‘active treatment’, and paid away his money without getting his system lowered.  On any other ground it is hard to explain a feeling of hostility to Mr. Jerome, who was an excellent old gentleman, expressing a great deal of goodwill towards his neighbours, not only in imperfect English, but in loans of money to the ostensibly rich, and in sacks of potatoes to the obviously poor.