There was the workhouse,
but it meant separation, perhaps for ever, and they were man and wife,
as much needed the one by the other, perhaps more, as their prototype in
the world of plenty. Again Brooks smiled. He must have seen Flitch, a
capital chap Flitch, making up that parcel in the grocery department and
making an appointment for three days' time. And Menton, too, the young
doctor, as keen on the work as Brooks himself, but paid for his evenings
under protest, overhears the address--why, it was only a yard or two.
He would run back with the man and have a look at his wife. He had some
physic--he felt sure it was just what she wanted. So out into the
street together, and no wonder the yellow-stained fingers that grasped
the string of the parcel shook, and the man felt an odd lump in his
throat, and a wave of thankfulness as he passed a flaring public-house
when half-an-hour ago he had almost plunged madly in to find pluck for
the river--devil's pluck. The woman. Nothing the matter with her but
what rest and good food would cure. Another case for that little
cottage.
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