It is always hard for an old medical man to confess that anything has been discovered since the days of his youth; and beside, there were other reasons behind, which Heale tried to avoid giving; and therefore fenced off, and fenced off, till, pressed hard by Tom, wrath came forth, and truth with it.
"And what be you thinking of, sir, to expect me to offend all my best patients?
and not one of 'em but rents some two cottages, some a dozen.

And what'll they say to me if I go a routing and rookling in their drains, like an old sow by the wayside, beside putting 'em to all manner of expense?
And all on the chance of this cholera coming, which I have no faith in, nor in this new-fangled sanitary reform neither, which is all a dodge for a lot of young Government puppies to fill their pockets, and rule and ride over us: and my opinion always was with the Bible, that 'tis jidgment, sir, a jidgment of God, and we can't escape His holy will, and that's the plain truth of it." Tom made no answer to that latter argument.

He had heard that "'tis jidgment" from every mouth during the last few days; and had mortally offended the Brianite preacher that very morning, by answering his "'tis jidgment" with-- "But, my good sir! the Bible, I thought, says that Aaron stayed the plague among the Israelites, and David the one at Jerusalem." "Sir, those was miracles, sir! and they was under the Law, sir, and we'm under the Gospel, you'll be pleased to remember." "Humph!" said Tom, "then, by your showing, they were better off under the Law than we are now, if they could have their plagues stopped by miracles; and we cannot have ours stopped at all." "Sir, be you an infidel ?" To which there was no answer to be made.
In this case, Tom answered Heale with-- "But, my dear sir, if you don't like (as is reasonable enough) to take the responsibility on yourself, why not go to the Board of Guardians, and get them to put the Act in force ?" "Boord, sir?
and do you know so little of Boords as that?
Why, there ain't one of them but owns cottages themselves, and it's as much as my place is worth--" "Your place as medical officer is just worth nothing, as you know; you'll have been out of pocket by it seven or eight pounds this year, even if no cholera comes." Tom knew the whole state of the case; but he liked tormenting Heale now and then.
"Well, sir! but if I get turned out next year, in steps that Drew over at Carcarrow Churchtown into my district, and into the best of my practice, too.

I wonder what sort of a Poor Law district you were medical officer of, if you don't know yet that that's why we take to the poor." "My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more beside." "Then why go bothering me this way ?" "Why," said Tom, "it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed as often as possible-- "'Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, but now I know it.' What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on his tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he died!" He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that move; though more than by any other.
For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated London parson of course would; was shocked to hear that they were likely to become fact so soon and so fearfully; offered to do all he could: but confessed that he could do nothing.
"I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improvements in cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth: but I have been utterly unheeded: and bully me as you will, Doctor, about my cramming doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a Pope's bull, I assure you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring was as of a sucking dove, and ought to have prevailed, if soft persuasion can." "You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and a bull where you ought to have been a dove.

But roar now, if ever you roared, in the pulpit and out.