confreres have prescribed her?" Julia sighed aloud, and deprecated the
subject with earnest furtive signs; Mrs. Dodd would not see them. Now,
Dr. Sampson was himself afflicted with what I shall venture to call a
mental ailment; to wit, a furious intolerance of other men's opinions; he
had not even patience to hear them. "Mai--dear--mad'm," said he hastily,
"when you've told me their names, that's enough. Short treats her for
liver, Sir William goes in for lung disease or heart, Chalmers sis it's
the nairves, and Kinyon the mookis membrin; and _I_ say they are fools
and lyres all four."

"Julia!" ejaculated Mrs. Dodd, "this is very extraordinary."

"No, it is not extraordinary," cried Dr. Sampson defiantly; "nothing is
extraordinary. D'ye think I've known these shallow men thirty years, and
not plumbed 'um?"

"Shallow, my good friend? Excuse me! they are the ablest men in your own
branch of your own learned profession."

"Th' ablest! Oh, you mean the money-makingest: now listen me! our lairned
Profession is a rascally one. It is like a barrel of beer. What rises to
the top?" Here he paused for a moment, then answered himself furiously,
"THE SCUM."

This blast blown, he moderated a little. "Look see!" said he, "up to
three or four thousand a year, a Docker is often an honest man, and
sometimes knows something of midicine; not much, because it is not taught
anywhere. But if he is making over five thousand, he must be a rogue or
else a fool: either he has booed an' booed, an' cript an' crawled, int'
wholesale collusion with th' apothecary an' the accoucheur--the two