I told him.
"Ah, you haven't seen the new opera, then?" said he—just as we should say, when put to it for conversation—What frightful, or what beautiful weather this is! Before I could reply, there was another fearful groan from the adjoining room, but my new acquaintance proceeded without noticing it.
"You have nothing like our Académie in London, I believe?"
I was about to vindicate the Italian Opera, when the two surgeons again appeared. The baron in a few words said, that there was nothing to be done but to operate, and at once, if the life of the patient were to be spared at all. The three practitioners—for such they were—bowed in acquiescence, and the baron prepared his instruments.
It is the fashion to speak of medical men slightingly, if not reproachfully; to accuse them of practising solemn impositions, and of being, at the best, but so many legalized charlatans. It is especially the mode of speaking amongst those who will give "the doctor" no rest, and are not satisfied until they make that functionary the most constant visitor at their abodes. No one would have dared to breathe one syllable of disrespect against the surgeon's sacred office, who could have seen as I did, the operation which the baron performed this day. It has been done successfully three times within the memory of man; twice by himself, who first attempted it. It was grand to mark his calm and intellectual face—to see the hand—armed with the knife that cut for life or death—firm and unshaken as the mind that urged, the eye that followed, its unerring course. I could understand the worship that was paid to this incomparable master, by all that knew his power. Within five minutes by the clock, and in the sight of men whose breathless admiration made them oblivious of the throes of the poor sufferer, the process was completed, and the endangered life restored. The baron left the fainting invalid, retired for a few seconds, and prescribed. He returned and felt his pulse—and then, turning to the man with whom he had first spoken, said—
"Should any thing arise, sir, you will acquaint me with it."
"Unquestionably. He will do well?"
"No doubt of it. Good-morning."
"Good-morning, baron," said the gentleman obsequiously. "His excellency bore it wonderfully."
"Pretty well for an excellency. We don't notice these things in paupers—Now, Mr Walpole."