As reluctant as he was, however, the doctor, like the rest of the world, could not always keep his eyes and ears closed against those embarrassing things which we should all so much rather not know. There are bits of gossip which seem to be common and not altogether undesirable property; and there are ugly rumours which we feel it to be the part of decency to hush up. We hear, underhand, that Jones is wont to skulk at home for a fortnight dead drunk, that Smith's latest financial venture was curiously involved and cloudy; even if true, and even if we disapprove of Jones' and Smith's conduct in the abstract, it yet in no way concerns us. We are none of us saints, as the doctor himself said; we dislike especially the pose of holier-than-thou. Jones and Smith may not be model citizens, but let us give them the benefit of the doubt and continue to accept their dinner-invitations. Doctor Vardaman, an upright man who would as soon have taken a horse-whip to a servant as cheat him out of a penny, found himself averse to believe what was under his eyes every day, and obscurely whispered here and there by people in other ranks of life than Huddesley's. What if the Pallinders were besieged by duns, and their servants unpaid? That was none of his business; at the suggestion the old gentleman felt an irritation for which perhaps some mocking inner self was partly to blame. He found excuses for them; they were notoriously and amusingly careless, extravagant, free-handed--er--er--_Southern_, in a word; the colonel might be a rogue, as he undoubtedly was a wind-bag, yet of his own knowledge, the doctor could say nothing. Nobody had ever tried to trick _him_; he saw no reason why he should suddenly cold-shoulder the Pallinders; their house was the pleasantest he knew.