"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."