“I was speaking to Dr. Scipio,” the doctor quietly remarked. Then adding, “Dr. Hunter, you can come instead,” when another like poodle came and leaped upon the desk, and sat looking very wisely at his master.
While examining my case, he occasionally cast a glance at “Dr. Hunter,” sitting as quiet as a marble dog might, but seeming to understand the look which his master gave him, acknowledging it by a pricking up of the ears.
I received my prescription, and what proved to be most excellent advice, and retired. The next time I visited the eccentric doctor, both Drs. Scipio and Hunter were in full consultation, sitting side by side on the desk.
“Now, sirs,” said the doctor, after motioning me to a seat near him, “sirs Scipio and Hunter, keep very still, and give attention.”
A yawning noise and expression was their simultaneous reply.
“What is the object of the two canine specimens being always present when I have consulted you?” I ventured to inquire, on my last visit to the doctor.
“Some physicians consult two-legged pups, in complicated cases. I prefer quadrupeds. Have we not been very successful—myself, Drs. Hunter and Scipio—in your case, sir?”
This he said with a pleasant, half-serious countenance.
“Indeed, you have, sir,” I replied, to which the dogs gave a gap! (a smile?)
“You’ll find every successful man with some seeming useless habit or appendage, which, nevertheless, is essential to his success, in absorbing or distracting the superfluities of his nature. A sing-song, every-day man, whom you can see right through, and understand all his moves, seldom amounts to anything. I ape nobody, however, but I feel almost lost, in my examinations, without my dogs.”