"Be content, doctor," said the man, drily, but not roughly. "My name is Green, John Green, the trader; every body knows Green, the York trader, as they call me. I fished up the young gentleman;—that is, I helped the lady; and I must see him through his troubles."
"Never heard of you, Mr. Green," said the doctor; "but you may stay. You have something the matter with your eye! Now I don't boast; but I believe I am good at the eyes—I will look at it directly."
"I don't doubt it, doctor," said Mr. Green; "but suppose, instead of talking of my eyes, you make the best use of your own. Here's the young man in great suffering."
"Oh, ay," said doctor Merribody. "The first thing to be done is to strip the patient, and see what's the matter with him. Method is the soul of business. Hurrah, Jingleum; come, off with his coat,—strip it off."
"Rip it off, you mean," said the trader, touching the fractured arm significantly, and indeed somewhat angrily. "Of all fools I ever heard of, those are the greatest who break their arms, when necks are so much less valuable. Here's his right arm smashed like a sassafras-bough; and, I reckon, slipped at the shoulder, too!"
"Ay! the deuce! you don't say so? a luxation!" cried the physician. "Set the old woman to work with her scissors. Aunt Rachel, my good woman, rip up this sleeve; and rip it as gingerly as if every stitch was the nerve of a man's elbow. A comminuted fracture, I can tell by the feel!—Here, Pepperel, pour some warm water into the basin, chill it a thought from the ewer, and soak this rag in it. A very genteel-looking dog, I protest!—Jingleum, lay out my pocket-case, tear an old shirt into bandages two and a half inches wide, and roll 'em up; and you, Mr. York,—that is, Mr. Green, hand me the crooked scissors there, till I shave some of the hair from the wound. A devil of a job, if it turns out a trephine case! We must send off to town for Dr. Muller and his case of round saws—I don't object to consult with Dr. Muller; and if it comes to trephining, why the sooner we are ready for it the better. Method is the soul of business!"
"The cut on the head is but a scratch," said the trader: "I v'e looked at it myself. Goody, rip up the shirt-sleeve here, or let me do it—there's blacker work to look at."
"Method is the soul of business," cried the doctor, whose spirits were beginning to rise to a rapture, as business thickened on his hand, and who now raised himself a tip-toe among his temporary assistants, like a generalissimo surveying the manoeuvres of his subordinates on a field of battle, which is perhaps to determine the destinies of a nation; "there's nothing like method!" he ejaculated. "Aunt Rachel, scrape me a little lint—there are more scratches to be filled.—Hah! what! what the devil's the matter?" he cried, as the trader, groaning with sympathy at the sight, tore away the damp shirt from the shoulder, and displayed it deformed and shapeless from luxation. "Bless my soul, what! a dislocation, really, under the pectoralis major, anteriorly luxed! Oh, here's the devil to pay! Method is the soul of business: but what method is there in having at once an arm broke, a shoulder disjointed, a head cracked, and to be half drowned into the bargain? Murdering work, sir! murdering work! Where the deuce can I clap my pulley? and where the deuce, now I think of it, am I to get one?"
"A pulley!" exclaimed the trader, with scorn and indignation; "a pulley to drag a man's arm off! Why, where's your fingers? Come, doctor, now's the time."
"Method is the soul of business!" exclaimed the physician, waxing wroth. "Are you a doctor, a surgeon, a gentleman of the profession, Mr. What-d'-ye-call-'em, that you take it upon you to instruct me what to do? I tell you, sir, a physician is not to be prescribed his duty, sir; and I allow no man to interfere with me in my practice, sir!"