Again Andrew waved his hands wildly and began to explain, till she cut him short.
Perhaps, she suggested, it was the distance that troubled him. If so she had a friend, a connection indeed, for he was a relative of Josky's, who happened to be under certain obligations to her and owned a really tip–top hansom cab. For a very moderate sum this person, his horses and his cab would be at Andrew's disposal day and night, "for," added Mrs. Josky darkly, "I'll see he don't cheat you. He'd know better than to try it on with me, would Amos, unless he wants to see them hosses and that cab at his uncle's, I mean, up the spout."
Andrew murmured something about trams and buses, but again she cut him short.
"I know what it is," she said. "It's the neighbourhood which you think low, having as it were gone up in the world. Well, I have been considering a move myself. Give me a fortnight and I'll see what I can do over Harley Street way. I'm told there's a good opening for my kind of trade round about Marylebone Road."
"But it isn't the neighbourhood," gasped Andrew.
"Then it must be that there dratted girl, what they call the Whitechapel Rose," ejaculated Mrs. Josky, "and Abraham and all the prophets, as Josky used to say, only know what I am to do against her. I'll make bold to say one thing, though, Mr. Andrew, and that is, you look out that you don't find her in Harley Street before you."
"Whatever do you mean?" asked Andrew amazed.
Mrs. Josky pulled herself up, fearing that she might have gone too far, and Andrew, recovering strength, gathered himself for another charge, when the Fates intervened in the shape of stifled sobs followed by a piercing howl, proceeding from the landing outside. Mrs. Josky heard and inspiration took her.
"Listen to that poor child, Mr. Andrew," she said, "what you dragged up from the bottom of the grave. She's been eavesdropping, having guessed what was in your heart, for which I'll smack her head afterwards, and that's why she's howling outside there, like a cat on the tiles, because she can't bear to think that you're so cruel as to go and leave her, which she never would have believed of you, nor for the matter of that, wouldn't I unless I had heard it with my own ears and on the right side of the door."
Then with frightful suddenness Mrs. Josky also burst into tears.
"Stop! Stop!" cried Andrew, "and I'll stop too—for all my life, if you like."
Instantly, Mrs. Josky's tears dried up, and at the same moment the howls from the landing died away.
"That's all right, Sir," she said in a matter–of–fact voice, "and I'm glad, since there won't be any need for me, who hate changes, to look for a new lodger. When one knows the weaknesses of a gentleman, however bad they may be to put up with, one doesn't wish to try those of another that might be worse. Now I've got a beautiful crab for you for supper, and a bottle of white wine to drink with it, that a friend of mine in the trade gave me. Shatter Squirm, I think he called it, which I hope it won't make you do, and a toasted cheese to follow. So I'll be off to dress it and to smack the head of that Laurie if I can catch her, to teach her not to listen at doors."
So she went with triumph in her eye, metaphorically flapping her wings, and leaving Andrew so prostrate that it took the best part of the bottle of Château Yquem to restore his equilibrium. Until circumstances separated them, never again did he venture to suggest that he should depart from the shelter of Mrs. Josky's hospitable roof.
While he was digesting the crab and toasted cheese with Château Yquem sauce, which did not prove altogether an easy process, Andrew reflected on many things. Amongst others his mind dwelt upon a single sentence he recalled, standing up like a rock above the foaming flood of Mrs. Josky's eloquence, that in which she had so rudely spoken of Rose as "a dratted girl," and requested him to beware lest he should find her "in Harley Street before him." What on earth did she mean by that? It suggested that affection for him might take Rose to Harley Street, which, though flattering, was absurd, seeing that there was no one there of whom she could be jealous and she could always meet him at her own home if she wished. Could she then be suffering from some illness of which Mrs. Josky was aware, that would cause her to consult Dr. Somerville Black? No, that, too, was absurd, for never had he known anyone so entirely healthy.
And, now that he came to think of it, why had Rose herself received the news of his appointment in the way she did? He would have expected her to be delighted, seeing that it meant that within less than the appointed year he ought, with ordinary fortune, to be in a position to support her comfortably as his wife. And yet, although she had of course congratulated him, there was something in her tone which did not suggest delight, but rather a hidden reserve of disapproval. Perhaps she thought that he should not have left her father, even to better his fortune for her sake, being the unselfish creature that she was. He could not say; all he knew was that Dr. Watson himself took an entirely different view. There was no doubt about his pleasure at such a chance having come in the way of his unpaid assistant. At length Andrew gave it up and went to bed where, in his uneasy slumbers, the crab and the toasted cheese seemed to take up the problem and argue it out in a fashion as grotesque as it was unpleasant.
Next morning he presented himself at Harley Street and began his career as a fashionable physician.
"Glad to see you," said Somerville Black in his jolly tones. "That will be your kennel," and he showed him a kind of ante–chamber to the consulting–room. "All the books here, you see"—with a sweep of his arm he indicated shelves of medical works—"I don't read them much myself, prefer to study the living subject. But you may get something out of them. The other kind of books are in those drawers, and it will be your job to keep them in future. By the way, would you like a cheque on account? No. Well, so much the better. They think me liberal, but if you only knew how I hate parting with money! Comes from associating so much with Jews, I suppose. Talking of Jews, there's an old woman of that ancient race coming to see me presently, but she must see you instead as I have to go off to something really important, a little girl who is supposed to have swallowed a latch–key. She—the old woman I mean—has nothing the matter with her, except stinginess which has congested her liver. Listen to what she has got to say and prescribe Epsom Salts morning and evening in double doses. Good–bye, the door doesn't fit very well, but that don't matter as you will be able to listen to all that goes on in here and pick up some wrinkles. I dare say a lot of people will turn up and I mayn't be back till lunch. There's a list of their names and appointments on that desk; I've put their most probable diseases underneath. Do the best you can with them, and take the fees if they offer any, which I don't suppose they will."
Then he swept off like a hurricane, leaving Andrew terrified and bewildered.
Three minutes later the butler, Tompkins, a venerable, white–whiskered individual who looked like a cross between a stage peer and a mute, ushered in the old Jewess, Mrs. Solomon Isaacs by name, who stared at him amazed.
At first their interview was tumultuous, as she began by telling him that she had come to see the doctor, not the under–footman. Andrew laughed and replied with some repartee which made the other laugh also. Then she set out her symptoms, glad of a new listener, and ended by saying that if he prescribed Epsom Salts for her, she would throw them at his head. He replied that he would never dream of doing such a thing, as her case was far too serious, and wrote out a prescription in which the despised Epsom Salts appeared under an enormous Latin name. This pleased her so much that she departed, saying that she hoped she would see him again next time she called and not the doctor, and actually left her two guineas on the table, an event which Somerville Black afterwards declared partook of the miraculous.