Turning from the speaker with a look of angry impatience, the boy whispered some words in the Corporal's ear.
“What could I do, sir?” was the answer; “it was this fellow or nothing.”
“And better, a thousand times better, nothing,” said the boy, “than trust his life to the coarse ignorance of this wretched quack.” And in his passion the words were uttered loud enough for Billy to overhear them.
“Don't be hasty, your honor,” said Billy, submissively, “and don't be unjust. The realms of disaze is like an unknown tract of country, or a country that's only known a little, just round the coast, as it might be; once ye're beyond that, one man is as good a guide as another, coeteris paribus, that is, with 'equal lights.'”
“What have you done? Have you given him anything?” broke in the boy, hurriedly.
“I took a bleeding from him, little short of sixteen ounces, from the temporial,” said Billy, proudly, “and I'll give him now a concoction of meadow saffron with a pinch of saltpetre in it, to cause diaphoresis, d'ye mind? Meanwhile, we're disgorging the arachnoid membranes with cowld applications, and we're relievin' the cerebellum by repose. I challenge the Hall,” added Billy, stoutly, “to say is n't them the grand principles of 'traitment.' Ah! young gentleman,” said he, after a few seconds' pause, “don't be hard on me, because I 'm poor and in rags, nor think manely of me because I spake with a brogue, and maybe bad grammar, for, you see, even a crayture of my kind can have a knowledge of disaze, just as he may have a knowledge of nature, by observation. What is sickness, after all, but just one of the phenomenons of all organic and inorganic matter—a regular sort of shindy in a man's inside, like a thunderstorm, or a hurry-cane outside? Watch what's coming, look out and see which way the mischief is brewin', and make your preparations. That's the great study of physic.”
The boy listened patiently and even attentively to this speech, and when Billy had concluded, he turned to the Corporal and said, “Look to him, Craggs, and let him have his supper, and when he has eaten it send him to my room.”
Billy bowed an acknowledgment, and followed the Corporal to the kitchen.
“That's my lord's son, I suppose,” said he, as he seated himself, “and a fine young crayture too—puer ingenuus, with a grand frontal development.” And with this reflection he addressed himself to the coarse but abundant fare which Craggs placed before him, and with an appetite that showed how much he relished it.
“This is elegant living ye have here, Mr. Craggs,” said Billy, as he drained his tankard of beer, and placed it with a sigh on the table; “many happy years of it to ye—I could n't wish ye anything better.”