The trick was done. Without a doubt,
The sleepy boy let Bunce and burthen out;
Who coming to a lone convenient place,
The body stripp’d; hid all the clothes; and then,
Still favoured by the luck of evil men,
Found a new customer in Dr. Case.
All more minute particulars to smother,
Let it suffice,
Nine guineas was the price
For which one doctor bought the other;
As once I heard a Preacher say in Guinea,
“You see how one black sin bring on anudder,
Like little nigger pickaninny,
A-riding pick-a-back upon him mudder!”
“Humph!” said the Doctor, with a smile sarcastic,
Seeming to trace
Some likeness in the face,
“So death at last has taken old Bombastic!”
But in the very middle of his joking,—
The subject, still unconscious of the scoff—
Seized all at once with a bad fit of choking,
He too was taken of!
Leaving a fragment “On the Hooping Cough.”
Satan still sending luck,
Another body found another buyer:
For ten pounds ten the bargain next was struck,
Dead doctors going higher.
“Here,” said the purchaser, with smile quite pleasant,
Taking a glimpse at his departed brother,
“Here’s half a guinea in the way of present—
Subjects are scarce, and when you get another,
Let me be first.”—Bunce took him at his word,
And suddenly his old atrocious trick did,
Sacking M.D. the third,
Ere he could furnish “Hints to the Afflicted.”
Flush’d with success,
Beyond all hope or guess,
His new dead robbery upon his back,
Bunce plotted—such high flights ambition takes,—
To treat the Faculty like ducks and drakes,
And sell them all ere they could utter “Quack!”
But fate opposed. According to the schools,
When men become insufferably bad,
The gods confer to drive them mad;
March hairs upon the heads of April fools!
Tempted by the old demon avaricious,
Bunce traded on too far into the morning;
Till nods, and winks, and looks, and signs suspicious,
Ev’n words malicious,
Forced on him rather an unpleasant warning.
Glad was he to perceive, beside a wicket,
A porter, ornamented with a ticket,
Who did not seem to be at all too busy—
“Here, my good man,
Just show me, if you can,
A doctor’s—if you want to earn a tizzy!”
Away the porter marches,
And with grave face, obsequious precedes him,
Down crooked lanes, round corners, under arches;
At last, up an old-fashion’d staircase leads him,
Almost impervious to the morning ray,
Then shows a door—“There, that’s a doctor’s reckon’d,
A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come second—
Good day.”
“I’m right,” thought Bunce, “as any trivet;
Another venture—and then up I give it!”
He rings—the door, just like a fairy portal,
Opens untouch’d by mortal——
He gropes his way into a dingy room,
And hears a voice come growling through the gloom,
“Well—eh?—Who? What?—Speak out at once!”
“I will,” says Bunce.
“I’ve got a sort of article to sell;
Medical gemmen knows me very well—”
But think Imagination how it shock’d her
To hear the voice roar out, “Death! Devil! d—n!
Confound the vagabond, he thinks I am
A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor!”
“No Doctor!” exclaim’d Bunce, and dropp’d his jaw,
But louder still the voice began to bellow,
“Yes,—yes,—odd zounds!—I am a Doctor, fellow,
At law!”
The word sufficed.—Of things Bunce feared the most
(Next to a ghost)
Was law,—or any of the legal corps,—
He dropp’d at once his load of flesh and bone,
And, caring for no body, save his own,
Bolted,—and lived securely till fourscore,
From never troubling Doctors any more!
A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.
HOU happy, happy elf!
(But stop,—first let me kiss away that tear)—
Thou tiny image of myself!
(My love, he’s poking peas into his ear!)
Thou merry, laughing sprite!
With spirits feather-light,
Untouch’d by sorrow, and unsoil’d by sin—
(Good heavn’s! the child is swallowing a pin!)
Thou little tricksy Puck!
With antic toys so funnily bestuck,
Light as the singing bird that wings the air—
(The door! the door! he’ll tumble down the stair!)
Thou darling of thy sire!
(Why, Jane! he’ll set his pinafore a-fire!)
Thou imp of mirth and joy!
In Love’s dear chain so strong and bright a link,
Thou idol of thy parents—(Drat the boy!
There goes my ink!)
Thou cherub—but of earth;
Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale,
In harmless sport and mirth,
(That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!)