A landlord, who had returned in a fit of absent-mindedness to his property after a sojourn in England, was condoling with a woman on the death of her husband, and asked:—
'What did he die of?'
'Wishna, then, did he not die a natural death, your honour, for there was no doctor attending him?'
A not dissimilar story is that which concerns a Scotch laird who had fallen very sick, so a specialist came from Edinburgh to assist the local murderer in diagnosing the symptoms.
The canny patient felt sure he would not be told what was the matter, so he bade his servant conceal himself behind the curtains in the room where the doctors talked it over, and to repeat to him what they said.
This is what the faithful retainer brought as tidings of comfort to the alarmed invalid:—
'Weel, sir, the two were very gloomy, one saying one thing and the other another; but after a while they cheered up and grew quite pleasant when they had decided that they would know all about it at the post-mortem.'
That recalls to my mind Sidney Smith's definition of a doctor as an individual who put drugs of which he knew very little into a body of which he knew considerably less.
There is a rare lot of truth in some witticisms.
For some illogical reason only known to my own brain—perhaps with the desire of keeping up the fashion for inconsecutive and rambling observations common to all books of reminiscences—the foregoing stories suggest to my mind the excuse made to me by a wary scoundrel for not paying his rent.