“Well!” cried Stubbs. “My dear sir, when a man makes such an avowal, we know that the brain—for the time, at least—is gone. And when, moreover, the man happens to be a physician, why then”—and the Doctor, in despair of utterance big enough to express the result, took a pinch of snuff.
At this moment Doctor Mizzlemist joined the party. “Seen Dodo lately?” said he, looking mysterious. “Very odd. I suppose he means it as a joke; but jokes are not exactly the things for physicians; indeed, not for any man who’d ride in his carriage. Jokes are the luxury of beggars; men of substance can’t afford ’em.”
“Very true, Doctor,” said Stubbs, nodding serious affirmation.
“Must be mad, I think,” said Mizzlemist. “Going all about the town, swearing that he saw a man shot through the heart, and the man walk from the ground. Why, his diploma isn’t worth so much ass’s-skin. Who’d employ such a physician? Now, this is Dodo’s dilemma—law, insanity, poverty; the prongs of the caudine fork—if I haven’t forgotten my classics,” and Mizzlemist extended his three fingers.
“What do you mean? And only for saying a man was shot,” stammered Thrush, “what do you mean?”
“In the first place”—and Mizzlemist smacked his lips—“there is libel, inasmuch as to assert that a man lives with a bullet-hole in his heart, in the opinion of every sound lawyer implies a diabolic compact.”
“Good,” cried Stubbs, much satisfied.
“Secondly, if the physician escape libel, he is open to a writ de lunatico,” said Mizzlemist, his voice cheerfully rising.
“There can be no doubt of it,” averred Stubbs.
“Thirdly, if he get clear of libel, and, more extraordinary still, escape a lunatic jury, why, the physician’s practice is gone—dead as a fly in his own ointment.”