“There is a differ between your think and mine, I see, mistress. If they did wrong in getting away Harry's cattle so, as every body knows they did, then the tother of that—getting them back again—must be right. But you needn't tell any body what I've said, mistress; for they might, perhaps, have Bill Piper and me up, and try to make barglary out of it—or simony, I don't know but the law folks would call it—the breaking into a log-barn. But hush! Somebody's coming. It is the doctor.”
Doctor Soper, who now entered, was a small, pug-nosed, chubby man, of ostentatious manners, and high pretensions to skill and knowledge in his profession; though, in fact, he was but a quack, and of that most dangerous class, too, who dip into books rather to acquire learned terms than to study principles, and who, consequently, as often as otherwise, are found “doctoring to a name,” which chance has suggested, but which has little connection with the case which is engaging their attention.
“Ah, how do you find yourself, madam?” said the doctor, throwing off his dripping overcoat, and drawing up a chair towards the head of the patient's bed.
“Very ill, doctor,” replied the other. “Not so much on account of the loss of strength, as yet, as the deeply-seated pain in the chest, which, for the last twenty-four hours, has caused me great suffering; though, for the last half hour, not so severe.”
“Indeed, madam! Well, now for the diagnosis of your disease. I pride myself on diagnostics. Your wrist, madam, if you please,” said the doctor, proceeding to feel the pulse of his patient, with an air intended for a very professional one. “Tense—frequent—this pulse of yours, madam; showing great irritability. Your tongue, now. Ay—rubric—dry and streaked; usual prognostics of neuralgy. Pretty much made up my mind about your complaint coming along, madam, having learned from your lad here something of your troubles and fright on losing your home. And I was right, I see. It is neuralgy—decidedly a neuralgy.”
“What is that, doctor?”
“Always happy to explain, madam, so as to bring my meaning within the comprehension of common minds. Neuralgy madam, is a derangement of the nerves. Your disease, precisely.”
“Why, I am not at all nervous, sir,” responded the patient, looking up in surprise.
“You may not think so, madam. Few do, in your case.”
“And then, doctor, I have an intense inward fever,” persisted the other, “and my lungs seem much affected.”