"No matter," cried Sir Launcelot, "he may strike out some lucky thought for the benefit of the patient, and I desire you will call him instantly." While the apothecary was absent on this service, our adventurer took it in his head to question the landlord about the character of this physician, which had been so unfavourably represented, and received the following information:-- "For my peart, measter, I knows nothing amiss of the doctor--he's a quiet sort of an inoffensive man; uses my house sometimes, and pays for what he has, like the rest of my customers.

They says he deals very little in physic stuff, but cures his patients with fasting and water-gruel, whereby he can't expect the 'pothecary to be his friend.

You knows, master, one must live, and let live, as the saying is.

I must say, he, for the value of three guineas, set up my wife's constitution in such a manner, that I have saved within these two years, I believe, forty pounds in 'pothecary's bills.

But what of that?
Every man must eat, thof at another's expense; and I should be in a deadly hole myself if all my customers should take it in their heads to drink nothing but water-gruel, because it is good for the constitution.