But he had been and duly called on.  Before such a step was taken some words must undoubtedly have passed on the subject between Thorne and Scatcherds.  Thorne must have known what was to be done.  Having been so called, Dr Fillgrave had come—­had come all the way in a post-chaise—­had been refused admittance to the sick man’s room, on the plea that the sick man was no longer sick; and just as he was about to retire fee-less—­for the want of the fee was not the less a grievance from the fact of its having been tendered and refused—­feeless, dishonoured, and in dudgeon, he encountered this other doctor—­this very rival whom he had been sent to supplant; he encountered him in the very act of going to the sick man’s room.

What mad fanatic Burley, what god-succoured insolent Achilles, ever had such cause to swell with wrath as at that moment had Dr Fillgrave?  Had I the pen of Moliere, I could fitly tell of such medical anger, but with no other pen can it be fitly told.  He did swell, and when the huge bulk of his wrath was added to his natural proportions, he loomed gigantic before the eyes of the surrounding followers of Sir Roger.

Dr Thorne stepped back three steps and took his hat from his head, having, in the passage from the hall-door to the dining-room, hitherto omitted to do so.  It must be borne in mind that he had no conception whatever that Sir Roger had declined to see the physician for whom he had sent; none whatever that the physician was now about to return, feeless, to Barchester.

Dr Thorne and Dr Fillgrave were doubtless well-known enemies.  All the world of Barchester, and all that portion of the world of London which is concerned with the lancet and the scalping-knife, were well aware of this:  they were continually writing against each other; continually speaking against each other; but yet they had never hitherto come to that positive personal collision which is held to justify a cut direct.  They very rarely saw each other; and when they did meet, it was in some casual way in the streets of Barchester or elsewhere, and on such occasions their habit had been to bow with very cold propriety.

On the present occasion, Dr Thorne of course felt that Dr Fillgrave had the whip-hand of him; and, with a sort of manly feeling on such a point, he conceived it to be most compatible with his own dignity to show, under such circumstances, more than his usual courtesy—­something, perhaps, amounting almost to cordiality.  He had been supplanted, quoad doctor, in the house of this rich, eccentric, railway baronet, and he would show that he bore no malice on that account.

So he smiled blandly as he took off his hat, and in a civil speech he expressed a hope that Dr Fillgrave had not found his patient to be in any very unfavourable state.

Here was an aggravation to the already lacerated feelings of the injured man.  He had been brought thither to be scoffed at and scorned at, that he might be a laughing-stock to his enemies, and food for mirth to the vile-minded.  He swelled with noble anger till he would have burst, had it not been for the opportune padding of his frock-coat.