The Funny Side of Physic Part 56

"Me? No; it's the shorts and bears what's got the dol--hic--lar--tremens.

I've caught the pan--hics--panics, sir; that's all."

The policeman thrust the money-maniac into a cell, and the last seen of him he leaned back against the wall, his feet braced out, while, hatless and the knot of his cravat round under his left ear, he stood arguing the money-market with an imaginary broker on the opposite side of his cell.

AN "EYE-OPENER."

"How much do you charge, sir?" asked a poor farmer, from Framingham, of a city doctor, who had just wiped a bit of dust from the eye of his son.

"Twenty-five dollars, if you please," was the modest reply.

"I cannot pay it, sir," said the poor man. "It only took you a half minute. Our doctor was not at home; but I didn't think you would charge me much, sir."

So the M. D. very benevolently (?) accepted ten dollars--all the poor man had.

Can you wonder, after reading this statement, the truth of which is easily avouched for, that this doctor owns a whole block--stores, hotel--and is immensely rich?

From the English book "About Doctors," here are three anecdotes:--

Radcliffe, the humbug, with a great effort at generosity, had refused his fees for visiting a poor friend a whole year. On making a final visit, the gentleman said, presenting a purse,--

"Doctor, here I have put aside a fee for every day's visit. Let not your goodness get the better of your judgment. Take your money."

The doctor took a look, resolved to carry out his attempt at benevolence, just touched the purse to restore it to his friend, when he heard "the c.h.i.n.k of gold" within, and--put it into his pocket, saying,--

"Singly, I could have refused the fees for a twelvemonth, but collectively, they are irresistible. Good day, sir;" and the greedy doctor walked away with a heavier pocket and a lighter heart than he came with.

On visiting a n.o.bleman, Sir Richard Jebb was paid in hand three guineas when he, by right, expected five. The doctor purposely dropped the three gold pieces on the carpet, when the n.o.bleman directed the servant to find and restore them; but Sir Richard still continued the search after receiving the three coins.

"Are they not all found?" inquired the n.o.bleman, looking about.

"No, there must be two more on the carpet, as I have only three restored,"

replied the wily doctor.

His lordship took the hint, and said, "Never mind; here are two others."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DEATH'S FEE.]

This sticking for a fee was all cast into the shade by the act of an "eminent physician of Bristol." The doctor, entering the bedroom immediately after the death of his patient, found the right hand clinched tightly, and, pulling open the fingers of the dead man, the doctor discovered that the hand contained a guinea.

"Ah!" exclaimed the doctor to the servant and friends around him, "this was doubtless intended for me;" and so saying he pocketed the coin.

"Three hungry travellers found a bag of gold.

One ran into the town where bread was sold.

He thought, 'I will poison the bread I buy, And seize the treasure when my comrades die.'

But they, too, thought, when back his feet have hied, We will destroy him, and the gold divide.

They killed him, and, partaking of the bread, In a few moments all were lying dead.

O world, behold what ill thy goods have done!

Thy gold thus poisoned two and murdered one."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XVII.

LOVE AND LOVERS.

"No task is harder than that of writing to the ideas of another."--JOHNSON.

_Duke._ "If ever thou shalt love, In the sweet pangs of it, remember me; For such as I am all true lovers are; Unstaid and skittish in all things else, Save in the constant image of the creature That is beloved....

My life upon it, young as thou art, thine eye Hath stayed upon some face that it loves; Hath it not, boy?"

XANTIPPE, BEFORE JEALOUSY.--A FIRST LOVE--BLASTED HOPES.--A DOCTOR'S STORY.--THE FLIGHT FROM "THE HOUNDS OF THE LAW."--THE EXILE AND RETURN.--DISGUISED AS A PEDDLER.--ESCAPES WITH HIS LOVE.--ENGLISH BEAUS.--YOUNG COQUETTES.--A GAY AND DANGEROUS BEAU.--HANDSOME BEAUS.--LEAP YEAR.--AN OLD BEAU.--BEAUTY NOT ALL-POTENT.--OFFENDED ROYALTY.--YOUTH AND AGE.--A STABLE BOY.--POET-DOCTOR.

An old lady once said, "I've hearn say that doctors either are, or are not, great experts in love affairs; I've forgotten which." Just so!

"I would not be a doctor's wife for the world," I have heard many a lady affirm. True; for few doctors have had the misfortune (or folly) to select a jealous woman for a life companion.

Socrates, the great philosopher, and physician of the mind, seems to have had the ugliest tempered woman in the world, whose very name, _Xantippe_, has pa.s.sed into a proverb for a scolding wife; yet she was not jealous of her spouse, but was said to have sincerely loved him; and he bore her outbursts of temper only as a great philosopher could, which seemed not to have disturbed the equanimity of his living nor the humor of his dying.

"Crito,"--these were his last words,--"Crito, forget not the c.o.c.k that I promised to Esculapius!"

Alas! an affecting satire on philosophy and physic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY FIRST LOVE.]

No; we find no cases to record of the jealousies of physicians, or their wives. All the jealousies of the former are spent on their professional brethren.

It is a philosophical fact that physicians, of all men, seldom are involved in disgrace, quarrels, or litigations on account of love affairs.

Yet they have affections, like other men, and above all men know how to appreciate affection and virtue in woman.

FIRST LOVE--BLASTED HOPES.

I know of a little episode in the early life of a doctor, whose name modesty forbids me to mention. Let me briefly state it in the first person.

Ah, friend, if you and I should meet Beneath the boughs of the bending lime, And you in the same low voice repeat The tender words of the old love-rhyme, It could not bring back the same old time-- No, never.

I was young when I first fell in love,--not above six years of age; but love is without reason, blind to age. The object of my first affection was my school-_mischief_, as I then called her, who was about twenty. The disparagement of years never entered my innocent noddle. I used to start for school a half hour before nine, and stop on the way at the squire's house, where Miss ---- boarded. O, with what joy I always met her! In summer she gave me roses from the beautiful great white rose-bushes in the squire's front yard; in autumn and winter, splendid red and green apples, from the orchard and cellar, and candy and kisses at all times. So I fell desperately in love with her.

I was greatly shocked, and not a little piqued, when one day she, in cold blood, bade me good by, and went away with a tall man, with shocking red whiskers. That is all I remember about him. I, however, mourned her loss for years, although my appet.i.te remained unimpaired--my parents said.

"Like a still serpent, basking in the sun, With subtle eyes, and back of russet gold, Her gentle tones and quiet sweetness won A coil upon her victims: fold on fold She wove around them with her graceful wiles, Till, serpent-like, she stung amid her smiles."

The next time I saw her was about ten years afterwards. O, with what pleasant antic.i.p.ations I hastened to her house! I remembered her every look--her fair, intelligent face; her wavy black hair; her heavenly dark-blue eyes. O, I should know her anywhere! Her I never could forget.