Toi. Yes; this is what the secrets of my art have done for me to preserve me fresh and vigorous as you see.
Arg. Upon my word, a fine youthful old fellow of ninety!
Toi. I am an itinerant doctor, and go from town to town, from province to province, from kingdom to kingdom, to seek out illustrious material for my abilities; to find patients worthy of my attention, capable of exercising the great and noble secrets which I have discovered in medicine. I disdain to amuse myself with the small rubbish of common diseases, with the trifles of rheumatism, coughs, fevers, vapours, and headaches. I require diseases of importance, such as good non-intermittent fevers with delirium, good scarlet-fevers, good plagues, good confirmed dropsies, good pleurisies with inflammations of the lungs. These are what I like, what I triumph in, and I wish, Sir, that you had all those diseases combined, that you had been given up, despaired of by all the doctors, and at the point of death, so that I might have the pleasure of showing you the excellency of my remedies, and the desire I have of doing you service!
Arg. I am greatly obliged to you, Sir, for the kind intentions you have towards me.
Toi. Let me feel your pulse. Come, come, beat properly, please. Ah! I will soon make you beat as you should. This pulse is trifling with me; I see that it does not know me yet. Who is your doctor?
Arg. Mr. Purgon.
Toi. That man is not noted in my books among the great doctors. What does he say you are ill of?
Arg. He says it is the liver, and others say it is the spleen.
Toi. They are a pack of ignorant blockheads; you are suffering from the lungs.
Arg. The lungs?