Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/149

Rh it is my business to study it and treat it. I know its moods, and it is one of the most docile of creatures to drive. There is one thing it loves above anything, and that is a sore. Do you remember how Aunt Susan had a bad leg, and how she went on about that leg, the pride she took in it, the medicines she swallowed for it, and how she hated Betsy Tucker because she also had a bad leg, and how she contended that hers was the worst, the most inflamed, and caused her most pain? It is so with the public. It must have its sore; and show it, and discuss it, and apply to it quack plasters, and drink for it quack draughts. What would the doctors do but for the Aunt Susans and Betsy Tuckers—their fortunes stand on these old women's legs. So is it with us—we live by the bad legs of the nation. The public, in its heart of hearts, don't want those precious legs to be healed—certainly not to be taken off. What we have to do is to keep the sores angry with caustic, and poked with needles. And that is just why I want this manganese now, to rub it into the legs of the public and wake the sores up into irritation once more."

Then Welsh began to whistle between his front teeth and swing his foot again.

"The public," he continued, "are like Job on a dunghill, rubbing its sores. The public has no desire to have the dunghill removed; it rather likes the warmth. When it nods off into a nap then we stick the prongs of the fork into it, and up it starts excited and angry, and we turn the heap over under its nose, and then it settles down into it again deeper than before."

"I confess I do not know much about the public," said Mrs Saltren, resolved to have a word; "but when you come to the aristocracy, why then you are on my ground."

"On your ground," laughed Welsh, "because you were lady's maid at the Park; that is like the land surveyor claiming a property because he has walked over it with a chain."