A BOSTON QUACK EXAMINING A STUDENT.
“Have you got any money, young man?” growled the old doctor, wheeling around, and for the first time condescending to notice the poor wretch.
“No,” he sobbed in a pitiful voice.
“Then what do you come here for, sir?” roared the doctor, whose pity was a thing of the past. His soul was impenetrable to the appeal of suffering as the hide of the rhinoceros to a leaden bullet.
The young man, fortunately, did not know this fact, and persevered.
“I thought I might work for you to pay for treatment. O, I’ll do anything—sweep your office, wash up the floors and bottles, black your boots, do anything and everything, if you’ll only cure me. O, do! Say you will, sir!” and the young man writhed in agony of suspense.
“Humph!” grunted the old doctor, contemplatingly.
Doubtless he was considering the advantages which might accrue from accepting the proposition of this earnest applicant, for, after eying him sharply, and beating the devil’s tattoo for a few moments upon his table, the doctor condescended to “look into his case,” and finally to treat the young man’s disease upon the proposed terms.
M. began his apprenticeship by sweeping the office, and the old doctor held him to the very letter of the agreement, keeping him at the most menial service,—boot-blacking, bottle-washing, door-tending, etc.,—protracting his disease as he found the young man useful, till the old knave dared no longer delay the cure, for thereby the victim might go elsewhere for help. When cured, M. engaged to continue work for the small compensation that the doctor offered, especially since he and the old man had begun to understand each other pretty well, and each was equally unscrupulous as to the sponging of the unfortunate victims who fell into their hands.
When the doctor was observed to prescribe from any particular bottle, M. took a mental memorandum thereof till such time as he could take a look at the label, thereby learning the prescription for such disease; and the result was a decision that if this was the science of healing, “it didn’t take much of a man to be a”—doctor.