"'How did you know, sir,' says he, 'that Miss Hamilton was after eatin' oranges?'
"'Oh, 'twas easy enough to know that, John,' says the doctor to him, 'because,' says he, 'when I was feelin' her pulse I looked under the bed, an' I saw the heap o' skins.'
"Johnnie kep' wonderin' all the way home at the cleverness o' the doctor, an' wonderin', too, if he'd ever get a case all to himself, so that he could show his father an' mother an' the whole country how clever he was.
"Well, anyway, in a couple o' weeks after that a gossoon came up to Doctor Dempsey's one mornin' to tell him that old Peadar Mullen o' the Bog was bad with the pains, an' wanted him to call over an' see him. Peadar used to get pains about every fortnight, an' he was on the point o' dyin' with them—accordin' to his own opinion—about twenty times, an' he had the poor old doctor plagued sendin' for him every other week. Doctor Dempsey was a big-hearted sort of a man that was never hard on the poor, an' Peadar was that cranky an' conceited that he thought the doctor ought to be always runnin' over to see him, no matter about anyone else in the district. That was the sort o' Peadar.
"The doctor wasn't on for goin' near him this day, anyway, an' what do you think but he sends Johnnie, an' never said a word to him about what complaint Peadar had or anythin' only left him to find out for himself. Johnnie starts off an' the doctor's boy along with him on the car, an' it's him that was proud to think that he had a case all to himself at last, an' that he could be boastin' about it to his father an' mother that evenin' when he'd go home.
"They went down the old boreen to Peadar's house—'twas a long way in in the bog by itself, an' not a soul he had livin' with him—an' when they got over to it, Johnnie left the servant boy mindin' the horse, an' in he goes, an' sure dickens a much he could see with all the smoke that was in the house. Old Peadar was lyin' in bed in the room, an' he groanin' an' moanin' as hard as he could when he heard the doctor's car comin', because Doctor Dempsey used to give him a couple o' shillin's now an' again.
"'Doctor Dempsey can't come to-day, my good man,' says Johnnie, when he went into the room, an' he lookin' very grand an' severe an' solemn. 'He's not extra well, an' he sent me in his place to see what's the matter with you.'
"'Musha, may God bless your honour for comin', Doctor Finnegan,' says Peadar, thinkin' he'd knock a few shillin's out o' Johnnie, 'an' sure maybe he sent a gentleman every bit as good as himself.'
"Johnnie didn't know what to do, but he asked Peadar to put out his tongue, an' then he felt his pulse, an' all the time he was tryin' to get a peep under the bed, the same as he saw the doctor doin' with the lady that was after eatin' the oranges. At long last he spied the straddle an' winkers belongin' to old Peadar's ass, an' says he, shakin' his head an' lookin' at Peadar as much as to say, 'You're done for':
"'My good man,' says he, 'my good man, you ate an ass!'