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.”
XVII.
LOVE AND LOVERS.