THE SNUBBED PROFESSIONAL'S VADE MECUM.
Question. You consider yourself neglected because, I presume, the public do not appreciate you at your proper value?
Answer. That is, indeed, the case, and for further particulars I refer you to a recent correspondence in the Pall Mall Gazette.
Q. Is it not necessary that you should acquire an immense amount of knowledge to undertake the duties of your profession worthily?
A. Certainly; and we welcome any kind of safeguard that will protect the public against fraud and imposture.
Q. Then you consider your profession very seriously?
A. Undoubtedly. It is the most important profession in the world; not a man, woman, or child exists who has not derived some benefit from its exercise.
Q. If I am not mistaken, you ought to be educated at Oxford or Cambridge to do full justice to your opportunities?
A. Certainly; upon the foundation of a school training at either Eton, Westminster, Rugby, or Harrow.
Q. Ought you not to take up human and comparative anatomy?
A. As a matter of course, combined with physiology and chemistry.
Q. But does every professor of your art follow this routine of work?
A. Those who are of the greater worth. There are outsiders who assume our noble name and yet know nothing of our special subject.
Q. Besides the studies you have mentioned, are there any others necessary to the formation of a man of your special attainments?
A. Well, it would be well for an operator to understand metallurgy and mechanics.
Q. And have you to cultivate the graces of the person?
A. Certainly; you must be of a pleasing and courteous presence. You must be fitted by nature and art to obtain the confidence of those who pay you a professional visit. You must be tender and true. You must be able to converse on every subject under the sun, and distract the attention of a sufferer from his pains by causing him to listen to your anecdotes.
Q. It seems, then, you must be an admirable Crichton?
A. Well, yes, in a small way.
Q. Then what are you called? May I put down an archbishop, or a Lord Chief Justice, or a Prime Minister?
A. No, neither. I do not aspire to be a person of so much importance.
Q. Then what are you?
A. Why, merely a dentist!