CHAPTER IV.
FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND.
About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr.
Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every lion, poor as well as rich,--in country as in town, must needs have his jackal.
Heale's surgery--or, in plain English, shop--was a doleful hole enough; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected from a drunken occupant, with a practice which was only not decaying because there was no rival in the field.

But monopoly made the old man, as it makes most men, all the more lazy and careless; and there was not a drug on his shelves which could be warranted to work the effect set forth in that sanguine and too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like Mr.Pecksniff's England, expects every man to do his duty, and is, accordingly (as the Lancet and Dr.Letheby know too well), grievously disappointed.
In this kennel of evil savours, Heale was slowly trying to poke things into something like order; and dragging out a few old drugs with a shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, in a vague expectation that something must needs have happened to somebody the night before, which would require somewhat of his art.
And he was not disappointed.

Gentleman Jan, without taking his pipe out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on the counter, and his black-fringed chin on his fists; took a look round the shop, as if to find something which would suit him; and then-- "I say, Doctor, gi's some tackleum." "Some diachylum plaster, Mr.Beer ?" says Heale, meekly.

"What for, then ?" "To tackle my shins.

I barked 'em cruel against King Arthur's nose last night.