It was not worth the doctor’s while to aver that the testiness had all been on the other side, and that he had never lost his good-humour; so he merely smiled, and asked Sir Roger if he could do anything further for him.

’Indeed you can, doctor; and that’s why I sent for you,—­why I sent for you yesterday.  Get out of the room, Winterbones,’ he then said gruffly, as though he were dismissing from his chamber a dirty dog.  Winterbones, not a whit offended, again hid his cup under his coat-tail and vanished.

‘Sit down, Thorne, sit down,’ said the contractor, speaking in quite a different manner from any that he had yet assumed.  ’I know you’re in a hurry, but you must give me half an hour.  I may be dead before you can give me another; who knows?’

The doctor of course declared that he hoped to have many a half-hour’s chat with him for many a year to come.

’Well, that’s as may be.  You must stop now, at any rate.  You can make the cob pay for it, you know.’

The doctor took a chair and sat down.  Thus entreated to stop, he had hardly any alternative but to do so.

’It wasn’t because I’m ill that I sent for you, or rather let her ladyship send for you.  Lord bless you, Thorne; do you think I don’t know what it is that makes me like this?  When I see that poor wretch Winterbones, killing himself with gin, do you think I don’t know what’s coming to myself as well as him?

’Why do you take it then?  Why do you do it?  Your life is not like his.  Oh, Scatcherd!  Scatcherd!’ and the doctor prepared to pour out the flood of his eloquence in beseeching this singular man to abstain from his well-known poison.

’Is that all you know of human nature, doctor?  Abstain.  Can you abstain from breathing, and live like a fish does under water?’

‘But Nature has not ordered you to drink, Scatcherd.’

’Habit is second nature, man; and a stronger nature than the first.  And why should I not drink?  What else has the world given me for all that I have done for it?  What other resource have I?  What other gratification?’

’Oh, my God!  Have you not unbounded wealth?  Can you not do anything you wish? be anything you choose?’

‘No,’ and the sick man shrieked with an energy that made him audible all through the house.  ’I can do nothing that I would choose to do; be nothing that I would wish to be!  What can I do?  What can I be?  What gratification can I have except the brandy bottle?  If I go among gentlemen, can I talk to them?  If they have anything to say about a railway, they will ask me a question:  if they speak to me beyond that, I must be dumb.  If I go among my workmen, can they talk to me?  No; I am their master, and a stern master.  They bob their heads and shake in their shoes when they see me.  Where are my friends?  Here!’ said he, and he dragged a bottle from under his very pillow.  ’Where are my amusements?  Here!’ and he brandished the bottle almost in the doctor’s face.  ’Where is my one resource, my one gratification, my only comfort after all my toils.  Here, doctor; here, here, here!’ and, so saying, he replaced his treasure beneath his pillow.