It happened to be a dull time of year, and for some months my wheels
ceased to be rotatory: I got cold and damp; and the moths found their
way to my inside: one or two persons who came to inspect me declined
becoming purchasers, and peering closely at my panels, said something
about "old scratch." This hurt my feelings, for if my former possessor
was not quite so good as she might have been, it was no fault of mine.

At length, after a tedious inactivity, I was bought cheap by a young
physician, who having rashly left his provincial patients to set up in
London, took it into his head that nothing could be done there by a
medical man who did not go upon wheels; he therefore hired a house in a
good situation, and then set _me_ up, and bid my vendor put me down in
his bill.

It is quite astonishing how we flew about the streets and squares,
_acting great practice_; those who knew us by sight must have thought we
had a great deal to do, but we practised nothing but locomotion. Some
medical men thin the population, (so says Slander,) my master thinned
nothing but his horses. They were the only _good jobs_ that came in his
way, and certainly he made the most of them. He was obliged to _feed_
them, but he was very rarely _feed_ himself. It so happened that nobody
consulted us, and the unavoidable consumption of the family infected my
master's pocket, and his little resources were in a rapid decline.

Still he kept a good heart; indeed, in one respect, he resembled a
worm displayed in a bottle in a quack's shop window--he was never out of
spirits! He was deeply in debt, and his name was on every body's books,
always excepting the memorandum-books of those who wanted physicians.
Still I was daily turned out, and though nobody called him in, he was to
be seen, sitting very forward, apparently looking over notes supposed