PLATE VIII. Master Tom Scales and Master Ben Potts.
Have any of our readers heard an introductory lecture on the Practice of Physic? Or have they ever looked through the preface of a medical book. In either case, the importance of the practitioner, considered as are topics which they must have found enlarged upon. The hero preserved for his country, the father for his family, the child for the parent, all are represented as having to thank the doctor. The sufferer, perhaps a delicate female, stretched on the bed of sickness, is described as hailing his approach as that of some ministering spirit, listening anxiously for his footstep, and hearing in the creaking of his shoes, (provided it be not too loud,) a sweet and soothing music. All this is as it ought to be. But let praise be awarded where it is due, and let us not, while we appreciate the claims of the doctor, be unmindful of those of the doctor's boy. His instrumentality in the restoration of health, at least among the higher orders, cannot be denied, any more than can that of the organ bellows-blower in the production of harmony. And yet, while the thundering rap of his master at the front door, falls so harmoniously on the ear, his gentle ring at the area, and the softly-whistled air with which he beguiles the time until it is answered, are no more regarded than the idle wind.
He is observed speeding on his way to the abode of sickness, without interest, and loitering on it without indignation: he acquits himself, without admiration, of his high responsibilities; he violates them, and excites no horror.
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Masters Scales and Potts are, respectively, the subordinate assistants of Mr. Graves and Mr. Slaymore. The latter of these gentlemen, with whom Master Potts is situated, dispenses health from a private surgery; the former from a more public establishment. The difference in point of grade between these two disciples of Galen is very plainly discernible even in their dependants, the two Children of the Mobility now before us. The uniform of Master Scales is much less aristocratic, and much less professional also, than that of Master Potts, who looks, particularly about the feet and legs, as if he had been intended by Nature for a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries, rather than for the servant of one.
Mr. Graves and Mr. Slaymore being two out of half-a-dozen medical men residing in the same street, their young auxiliaries are in the habit of coming frequently in contact, and dialogues of a characteristic nature often take place, on these occasions, between them. We hope the following colloquy may seem less in need of abbreviation to the reader than it might be to a patient dependent on its termination for his dose of calomel.
"Hallo! old feller, where are you off to in sitch a hurry?" The querist was Master Scales, who in sauntering along the neighbouring square was passed by Master Potts, walking at a rapid pace, with his salutiferous burden upon his arm.
"Hallo!" replied Master Potts; and turning round he beheld his young acquaintance, Tom. "Well, young stick-in-the-mud!"
"I say, who's got the cholera, to make you stir your stumps like that 'ere?"
"Who do you think?—Mrs. Walker."
"Gammon! What's up tell us."
"Why it's the old gal at 42; she 's precious bad, I can tell yer."
"What's got her then? I see her the day 'fore yesterday, lookin' all right enough."
"Paralatic—least that's what maws'r says 'tis. He 'll be precious wild if she dies. My eye what a lot o' bottles I've a-took there! I warrand you ain't got sitch a good un!"
"Ain't we though; there's a old chap we've got from the East Ingies, as I'd back agin her any day."
"What! that old cove with the gamboge sneezer and swivel eye?"
"Aye; he've a-had the dropsy the last three months. Just haven't the guv'ner stuck it into im!"
"Look there, whose black job is that goin' along close by old Punch,—your guv'ner's?"
"Over the left—Come, I say, don't be orf jist yet."
"Must. I'm in for it as 'tis."
"No, no. Here! I 'll toss yer for a pint." As he made this offer, Master Scales deposited his basket on the pavement, and produced a halfpenny.
"Well, come, be quick then! Now! Heads, I win; tails, you lose."
"Heads! Heads 'tis!
"Come, I say, Master Ben, give us my change, will yer."
"Take your change out of that!" So saying, and suiting an appropriate action to the word, Master Potts turned rapidly on his heel; and before his professional brother could pack up his materia medica from the ground, had turned a corner and was out of sight.
Delays are proverbially said to be dangerous; and equally well-known is the maxim which recommends the attacking of a disease at its onset. Leaving our readers, according to their medical opinions, to calculate the damage, or estimate the good which the patients of Messieurs Graves and Slaymore derived from the amusements of their young subsidiaries, we shall now conclude our notice of those personages, and therewith, our labours. We hope that we have acquitted ourselves in a satisfactory manner; but in criticising the foregoing pages, let the fact be borne in mind, that it is very difficult to render the children of the Mobility interesting. It is easy to make a silk purse out of a proper material; but there is a substance from which it is impossible to construct it. Shall we be pardoned by the superior classes for thus distantly referring to a plebeian saying! Would we had had some nobler, some more inspiring theme! Such, Reader, had they not been already so fairlie done, we should have found in the Children of the Nobility.