guineas.’  ’Stand and deliver seven, thirteen, to the clerk of the Hanaper’—­and there’s no such thing as a Hanaper.  ‘Stand and deliver three, five,’ to a go-between that calls himself the Lord Chancellor again, and isn’t.  ’Stand and deliver six, naught, to a go-between that acts for the deputy, that ought to put a bit of sealing-wax on the patent, but hasn’t the brains to do it himself, so you must pay me a fancy price for doing it, and then I won’t do it; it will be done by a clerk at twenty-five shillings a week.’  And, all this time, mind you, no disposition to soften all this official peculation by civility; no misgiving that the next wave of civilization may sweep nil these go-betweens and leeches out of the path of progress; no, the deputy-vice-go-betweens all scowled, as well as swindled:  they broke my heart so, often I sat down in their antechambers and the scalding tears ran down my cheeks, at being pillaged of my time as well as my money, and treated like a criminal—­for what?  For being, in my small way, a national benefactor.”

“Ay,” said the doctor, “you had committed the crime of brains; and the worse crime of declining to be starved in return for them.  I don’t rebel against the fees so much:  their only fault is that they are too heavy, since the monopoly they profess to secure is short-lived, and yet not very secure; the Lord Chancellor, as a judge, has often to upset the patent which he has sold in another character.  But that system of go-betweens, and deputy-go-betweens, and deputy-lieutenant-go-betweens and nobody doing his own business in matters of State, it really is a national curse, and a great blot upon the national intellect.  It is a disease; so let us name it.  We doctors are great at naming diseases; greater than at curing them.

     “’Let us call it Vicaria,
     This English malaria.’

“Of this Vicaria, the loss of time and money you have suffered is only one of the fruits, I think.”

“All I know is, they made my life hell for more than a month; and if I have ever the misfortune to invent any thing more, I’ll keep it to myself.  I’ll hide it, like any other crime.  But no; I never will invent another thing:  never, never.”

“Stuff!  Methinks I hear a duck abjure natation.  You can’t help inventing.”

“I will help it.  What, do you think I’ll be such an ass as to have Brains in a country where Brains are a crime?  Doctor, I’m in despair.”

“Then it is time to cast your eyes over this little picture.”

The inventor turned the little picture listlessly about.  “It is a woman, with an anchor.  It’s a figure of Hope.”

“Beautifully painted, is it not?”

“The tints are well laid on:  but, if you’ll excuse me, it is rather flat.”  He laid the picture down, and turned away from it.  “Ah, Hope, my lass, you’ve come to the wrong shop.”

“Not she.  She was painted expressly for you, and by a very beautiful girl.”