"Mrs. Skelp, sir," interpolated the caller. "Mrs. Skelp, of Peacock Street. You must remember me, sir. I’ve ’ad you in for me last three." "Why, of course, I remember you, Mrs. Skelp," responded the shameless physician; "your name had slipped my memory. And how are they all doing?" "Nicely, thank you, sir," said Mrs. Skelp. "Excepting," she added, as if with a sudden afterthought—"the pore little thing what died. Although I’m sure, doctor—and many’s the time I said the same to Skelp—I’m sure you done _your_ best. Though ’ow you made seven visits of it when the child was on’y ill five days is a thing I never could—but, there, let bygones be bygones. About this water now. You think that water’s a safe sort of thing for anybody to drink, Doctor?" "It’s—ahem—it’s a—er—a natural sort of drink, you know," suggested the doctor. "Why, cert’nly, Doctor," admitted Mrs. Skelp. "On’y ... Well, so far as that goes, you could say the same of milk." "You could," assented Dr. Brink. "And yet," pursued his patient, "it is well known to all of us what milk will do for the system. Look ’ow it puffs you out. Look at that baby of mine, the pore little thing what died. You did your best, Doctor, we all know, but we’ve often thought since as milk was at the bottom of it. It doesn’t do for the likes of us to set ourselves up against the doctor, but you’ll remember yerself that I had my suspicions about you ordering so much milk. ’What _I_ think she wants,’ I said, is one of your biggest bottles of good dark red, and—— But there, let bygones be bygones. What I really come ’ere for is about this water question. I says to mine last night, I says—’e’s a drayman, you know, Doctor.’" The Doctor nodded. "Well," suggested Mrs. Skelp, "you know what _draymen_ are. Water’s no drink for a drayman, Doctor." "I—I suppose not," ventured the doctor. "And mine, ’e’s a ’eavy, full-bodied build o’ man. And so I says to ’im—but what’s the good o’ sayin’ _anythink_ to ’im. The long and the short o’ it is, Doctor, as ’e’s took to the water ’abit. "I meantosay," continued Mrs. Skelp, having marked the doctor’s grin, "I meantosay as ’e’s sworn off ’is licker. "’E’s a great reader is mine, you see. ’E sets up in bed for hours o’ a Sunday morning and gets through as much as three-pennyworth o’ papers at a setting. Not that I ’olds with so much readin’, mind you. ’Moody boys an’ readin’ gals,’ we used to say—well, you know the rest, Doctor. It’s a thankless ’abit. "But, at the same time, mind you, I believe in the notion that Sunday is a day of rest. A man’s ’ouse is ’is own of a Sunday, I always say. And so I ain’t never raised no objections to mine amusin’ ’isself; and I can’t say that no ’arm ’as ever come of my good nature. Not till now. But now we see the fruits of it.