"All I want is, just to have the names of your chief enemies." This valiant sister, as she spoke, spread forth an ivory _deltis_, as that arrangement then was called, a baby-fan with leaves of no more substance than a wafer. "Have no fear, Jemmy, I will not kill them, unless my temper rises. You are so abominally forgiving, that I daresay you don't know their names."
"Not I," said the Doctor, beginning to fill his after-breakfast pipe, for now he had no round to make among his patients of the paying class; "Chris, they are all alike; they have no ill-will at all against me, unless it is Jackson, and young Webber, and half a dozen other muffs perhaps, with a grudge because I have saved poor fellows they were killing. I have never interfered in any rich man's case; so they have no right to be so savage."
"They are dummies," answered Christie, just waving her hand, and then stopping it, as if they were not worth the trouble. "I don't mean them. They could never lead opinion. I mean people of intelligence, or at any rate of influence."
"Well really I don't know any of that sort, who have gone against me openly. Such people generally wait to hear both sides, unless their duty drags them into it. Both the Churchwardens are against me, I believe. But that must be chiefly, because they saw with their own wise eyes what had been done. You know, or perhaps you don't, but I do, what an effect is produced on the average mind by the sight of anything. Reason seems to fly, and the judgment is lost. But Horner is a very decent fellow, and I have been of some service to his family. Farrant is a man of great honesty and sense; but carried away perhaps for the moment. I hear that he is coming round to my side."
"Then I won't put down either of them. But come, there must be some one at the head of it."
"Upon my word, I don't think there is. Or if there is, he keeps quite in the background. It seems to be rather a general conclusion, than any conspiracy against me. That makes it so much harder to contend with. One proof of what I say is, that there has been no further application for a warrant, since Mr. Mockham's refusal. If there were any bitter enemy, he would never have been content with that."