"I have not yet told you that I have the advantage of you, Mr. Lydgate,

and know you better than you know me. You remember Trawley who shared

your apartment at Paris for some time? I was a correspondent of his,

and he told me a good deal about you. I was not quite sure when you

first came that you were the same man. I was very glad when I found

that you were. Only I don't forget that you have not had the like

prologue about me."

Lydgate divined some delicacy of feeling here, but did not half

understand it. "By the way," he said, "what has become of Trawley? I

have quite lost sight of him. He was hot on the French social systems,

and talked of going to the Backwoods to found a sort of Pythagorean

community. Is he gone?"

"Not at all. He is practising at a German bath, and has married a rich

patient."

"Then my notions wear the best, so far," said Lydgate, with a short

scornful laugh. "He would have it, the medical profession was an

inevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men--men who

truckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside

the walls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus

within. In short--I am reporting my own conversation--you may be sure

I had all the good sense on my side."

"Your scheme is a good deal more difficult to carry out than the

Pythagorean community, though. You have not only got the old Adam in

yourself against you, but you have got all those descendants of the

original Adam who form the society around you. You see, I have paid

twelve or thirteen years more than you for my knowledge of

difficulties. But"--Mr. Farebrother broke off a moment, and then

added, "you are eying that glass vase again. Do you want to make an

exchange? You shall not have it without a fair barter."

"I have some sea-mice--fine specimens--in spirits. And I will throw in

Robert Brown's new thing--'Microscopic Observations on the Pollen of

Plants'--if you don't happen to have it already."

"Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higher price.

Suppose I ask you to look through my drawers and agree with me about

all my new species?" The Vicar, while he talked in this way,

alternately moved about with his pipe in his mouth, and returned to

hang rather fondly over his drawers. "That would be good discipline,

you know, for a young doctor who has to please his patients in

Middlemarch. You must learn to be bored, remember. However, you shall

have the monster on your own terms."




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