Cripps--still smarting under Dr. McCabe's introduction into preserves he
had reckoned exclusively his own--advised himself to throw off a nasty
word or so on the subject to Commander Battye and Captain Taylor, over
strong waters and cigars in his surgery--tea, the ladies, and the
card-table left to their own devices in the drawing-room meanwhile--one
evening after a rubber of whist.
"Damn bad taste, I call it, in a newcomer like Cripps," the sailor had
remarked later to the soldier. "But if a man isn't a gentleman what can
you expect?"--And with that, as among local persons of quality, the
matter finally dropped.
Mrs. Doubleday and Butcher Cleave, to give an example from a lower social
level, agreed, across the former's counter in the village shop, that--
"It is the duty of every true Christian to let bygones be bygones--and a
downright flying in the face of Providence, as you may say, to do
otherwise, when good customers, whose money you're sure of, are so
scarce. For without The Hard and--to give everyone their due--without the
Island also, where would trade have been in Deadham these ten years and
more past? Mum's the word, take it from me,"--and each did take it from
the other, with rich conviction of successfully making the best of both
worlds, securing eternal treasure in Heaven while cornering excellent
profits on earth.
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