Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/120

110 "My father was ignorant," said Felix, bluntly. "He knew neither the complication of the human system, nor the way in which drugs counteract each other. Ignorance is not so damnable as humbug, but when it prescribes pills it may happen to do more harm. I know something about these things. I was 'prentice for five miserable years to a stupid brute of a country apothecary—my poor father left money for that—he thought nothing could be finer for me. No matter: I know that the Cathartic Pills are a drastic compound which may be as bad as poison to half the people who swallow them; that the Elixir is an absurd farrago of a dozen incompatible things; and that the Cancer Cure might as well be bottled ditch-water."

Mr Lyon rose and walked up and down the room. His simplicity was strongly mixed with sagacity as well as sectarian prejudice, and he did not rely at once on a loud-spoken integrity—Satan might have flavoured it with ostentation. Presently he asked in a rapid low tone, "How long have you known this, young man?"

"Well put, sir," said Felix. "I've known it a good deal longer than I've acted on it, like plenty of other things. But you believe in conversion?"

"Yea, verily."