“You must ask the doctor, my son,” replied the father in a feeble voice.
“Hypo,” said the unsuspecting doctor, “is an imaginary disease,—the hypochondria, vapors, spleen; ha, ha, ha!”
“Well, papa, that’s what the doctors said you’ve got, ’cause I was on top of the book-case an’ heard all they said, an’ that’s all.”
The doctor looked blank. H. arose in his bed, trembling with rage.
“By the heavens above us, I do believe you, my son; and this fellow, this quack, has never had the manliness to tell me so;” and leaping to the floor in his brief single garment, he caught the dumb and astonished “M. D.” by the coat collar and another convenient portion of his wardrobe, and running him to the open door, through the hall, he pitched him out into the midnight darkness, saying, “There! I have demonstrated the truth of the assertion by pitching the doctor out of doors.” H. recovered his health. The doctor recovered damages for assault and battery.
VII.
CHARLATANS AND IMPOSTORS.