‘Ah!’ said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, ‘I always take ‘em out of my pocket before I eat. My pockets are rather tight. Ha, ha, ha!’
Jonas had opened one of the shining little instruments; and was scrutinizing it with a look as sharp and eager as its own bright edge.
‘Good steel, doctor. Good steel! Eh!’
‘Ye-es,’ replied the doctor, with the faltering modesty of ownership. ‘One might open a vein pretty dexterously with that, Mr Chuzzlewit.’
‘It has opened a good many in its time, I suppose?’ said Jonas looking at it with a growing interest.
‘Not a few, my dear sir, not a few. It has been engaged in a—in a pretty good practice, I believe I may say,’ replied the doctor, coughing as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that he couldn’t help it. ‘In a pretty good practice,’ repeated the doctor, putting another glass of wine to his lips.
‘Now, could you cut a man’s throat with such a thing as this?’ demanded Jonas.
‘Oh certainly, certainly, if you took him in the right place,’ returned the doctor. ‘It all depends upon that.’
‘Where you have your hand now, hey?’ cried Jonas, bending forward to look at it.
‘Yes,’ said the doctor; ‘that’s the jugular.’