every profession. Those of the medical faculty
work in two mines—public credulity and private
innocence: the innocence of the young men who
wander up and down, eager to Iearn how to begin
practice. These young men may be worked
most profitably. They are small capitalists,
eager to find other men's pockets in which to
place their money: happy to pay bank-notes for
flourishes on paper. They are beset, therefore,
with accommodating offers. What shall they
believe? How shall they protect themselves,
and avoid buying sorrow for the bright young
partners of their hope with whom they exchange
confidential details and suggestions through the
country post—good little girls, who shall be
doctors' wives some day?

Be shrewd, now, for your own sake, little
girl, and lend the help of your bright eyes for
the discovery of Doctor Corvus whenever he is
at hand. He is your lover's demon, as you are
his angel, and the tempter comes in many
shapes. That true-hearted young fellow, whose
diploma you have read with reverence, is quite
a Faust for learning, and no Mephistopheles
would make him wish for any other prize of
beauty than yourself. But there is a
Mephistopheles who finds him eager for a nest to take
you to, ambitious and self-confident as youth
should be. He it is who may fly away with the
young man into a crow's-nest. Be a wise maiden,
and keep watch.

I knew a clever youth—knew him because a
day of sorrow opened to my sight for a few
hours the depths of his warm heart—and when he
had laboured much and suffered something, he
was looking for his place in life. When should
he, Biceps, begin practice? There was the
usual little woman down in the country, writing
the usual number of little notes; there was
the lump of parental capital—an honest tradesman's
entire earnings—to set up, in a profession
for which he was competent. To Biceps,
tenderly trained in a religious home, the tempter
came, confessing that he was a scoffer. "There's
only a thousand a year at Cheatenhall,
expenses paid; but it's a large place where there
are thousands to be humbugged. If you join
me, we shall soon double the practice. Medical
men take a great deal of solemn credit to
themselves; but all these pills and draughts and
mixtures really are for the most part humbug, and
patients demand to be laboriously trifled with.
Between ourselves, we are all of us humbugs. I
profess only to be a man of the world, give
people what they choose to pay for, and receive
the benefit. I'm something of a betting man, I
am ashamed to say, and have neglected practice
rather to my hurt. Besides, I don't get the
professedly religious people, who are a large body in
Cheatenhall. If you stick to the work and go
to church, you'll soon double the bulk of the
day-book. Half of a thousand a year is not
enough to live upon: but yon know very well,
as a man of the world, that two horses can pull
a bigger load than one. However, I would
advise you to take your time, if you think
anything of our putting our horses together. Come
down for a few months as an assistant, see
what the work is, and look at leisure through
the books. It is easier to tie a knot, you
know, than to unpick it." Biceps went to
see for himself, and walked up and down
Cheatenhall for weeks in spectacles provided for him
by the tempter, who was always at his side.
There was practice, there was money, there was
unlimited room for expansion. Corvus did truly
repel the religious world; while all his talk was
preternaturally laden with that selfish wisdom
which young men—especially when they are
themselves generous and trustful—often erroneously
suppose to be the atmosphere of commerce: "I
want this man," thought Biceps, "to help me to
make money. Surely he is the right sort of man
to be safe with in a pounds-shillings-and-pence
relation." So the bond was signed, and the rash
student became the slave of his familiar. Corvus,
of course, intercepted and retained partnership
money; disappointing facts came out; Biceps
toiled and hoped. Corvus dipped into a private
and personal bankruptcy of his own, and having
already sucked up his partner's capital, tested
in the next place his borrowing power, by
involving him in fresh expense and risk. Years
have run by, and Biceps fights alone a weary
battle, still living on hope, with a sister for his
housekeeper. The pale little woman in the
country still comforts him with little letters;
sometimes he can escape to her for a chance day.
And the years are flying, and the five hundred a
year, on which one cannot live, is longed for as a
dream of competence which two may yet survive
to share together.

Be true to your hearts, men and maids!
Defy whatever tempts you with a sneer, and
make no compact with avowed dishonesty.
It is not getting support from without in the
sort of worldliness you fancy to be wanting in
yourselves. The temper of each age is its own
proper worldliness. Joy is the worldliness of childhood,
hope of youth, prudence of age; each does
its own work in its own time, when it lives faithfully
in natural communion with the other two.

Anceps wrote sentimental poetry and
physicked another man's paupers in the west, before
he went north to expend his capital in partnership
with a philanthropist. Dr. Corvus, of
Smashley, what an honest man, was he!
Substantial was his build, his hair was crisp and
grey, he abjured fermented drinks, making
amends to his system with butter and potatoes,
his house was his own freehold and the best
house in the place, his tongue was (if Anceps
had but known that soon enough) his whole
estate. He was a temperance orator, a benefactor
of A. B.'s trusted adviser, C.'s forlorn hope, and
the friend in need of D. He could talk jauntily
to young Anceps about Avicenna, create an
impression of much hidden knowledge in himself
while syringing the ears of the young dreamer
with oil of flattery. "My practice," he said to
the youth, "has been falling off for years. I
have been established forty years in Smashley,
and have done well; but a foolish desire to do
what good I can in unprofessional ways causes