As she was penniless, the woman was forced to bring her child to this medicaster.
"Sir, you see my little girl ... I think milk would do her good...."
He had but to write a note, and she would have had it.
"Milk! I haven't any! I keep no cows in my house!" and the doctor burst out laughing, thinking himself very witty.
"Anyhow," the mother said with her teeth ground, "when he stays at home there is a brute beast in his house worse than a cow."
Another beggar woman had twins about two years old. One of them ate soup and bread, and throve like couch-grass. The other, who ever since the family had left their native hamlet had fed on indigestible things, and had nowhere to lay her head, had grown pale and sickly. She had ceased to run alone, took no food, and pined away visibly. Her mother brought her to the doctor.
"That child! What should I prescribe her? She is ailing on account of her being French. French children are all rickety and weakly. How am I to help it? Lay the blame on your race."
Before leaving, the little doctor sometimes gave a glance—a single one—at the rooms of the hospital, then stepped into his carriage, took up the reins, cracked his whip, and as harsh-featured as ever put his horse to a gallop.
However, some attention had to be paid to the sick. The orderly was there for that purpose. He was a big stout man, whose eyes seemed starting from their sockets. He did not like to be called up in the afternoon—he took a nap—and still less in the night. His remedies—the same for every sickness—were most economical: "Keep on low diet, apply cold compresses." Yet he understood his business well enough.
Our hostess, Mme. Charvet, a wealthy landowner, suddenly fell ill of a disquieting haemorrhage. No doctor in the village, not even in the neighbourhood. We ran in haste to fetch "Goggle-eyes."