The Country Doctor
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR BY HONORE DE BALZAC Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell "For a wounded heart--shadow and silence." To my Mother
cupboard there would be just the ticket; you could put him under the
wine-bottles, and then there'd be wine above and whine below.
~Videsne puer~? D'ye twig, young 'un? But if you're squeamish about
that, there are heaps of places in the town where you could keep a
beast."
So, when our hero had been persuaded that the possession of an animal
of the terrier species was absolutely necessary to a University man's
existence, he had not to look about long without having the void
filled up. Money will in most places procure any thing, from a grant
of arms to a pair of wooden legs; so it is not surprising if, in
Oxford, such an every-day commodity as a dog can be obtained through
the medium of "filthy lucre;" for there was a well-known dog-fancier
and proprietor, whose surname was that of the rich substantive just
mentioned, to which had been prefixed the "filthy" adjective,
probably for the sake of euphony. As usual, Filthy Lucre was
clumping with his lame leg up and down the pavement just in front of
the Brazenface gate, accompanied by his last "new and extensive
assortment" of terriers of every variety, which he now pulled up for
the inspection of Mr. Verdant Green.
"Is it a long-aird dawg, or a smooth 'un, as you'd most fancy?"
inquired Mr. Lucre. "Har, sir!" he continued, in a flattering tone, as
he saw our hero's eye dwelling on a Skye terrier; "I see you're a
gent as ~does~ know a good style of dawg, when you see 'un! It ain't
often as you see a Skye sich as that, sir! Look at his colour, sir,
THE COUNTRY DOCTOR BY HONORE DE BALZAC Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell "For a wounded heart--shadow and silence." To my Mother