me to attend meetings and to be summoned
frequently to London. I have withdrawn so
much time from my practice that I shall be
losing it unless I take a partner who will see that
nothing is neglected. I am not wholly dependent
on my profession, and I could not tie myself
to any one who could not sympathise with my
desires and be an intellectual friend. I do
much hope that we shall come together. I liked
you the first moment I saw you."

So Anceps yielded up his blood. The young
fellow went to Smashley and began life as a
working partner, while the benevolent familiar
was in London, strewing blessings on his race, as
he suggested. He was in reality spending the
patrimony of Anceps in riotous enjoyment of the
law-courts, upon which he had already wasted
his own substance. For, among writs, subpœnas,
attorney's costs, bailiffs, mortgages, and executions,
this particular form of Corvus was at
home. In his medical ledger there were many
names; these had been all the wealthy and the
honest people of the town, and there were still
most of the rogues and paupers. There was
only by the rarest chance ever a patient who
paid money without compulsion, or was asked to
pay less than four times an honest charge when
finally by due process of law compelled. The
weak point of the philanthropist was litigation.
Some men love neighbours who will sit down
with them to a rubber at whist: this sort of
Corvus loved neighbours who would sit down
with him—no matter for what stakes—to an action
at law. A law-court was his gambling-house.
He often won, and he had ruined many—ruined
others even when he was himself a loser. When
Anceps fell under his tempting, there were
hidden behind the mask of the philanthropist
the haggard lines of the long-ruined gamester.
House and land were mortgaged, show of practice
was a fraud; nobody warned the deluded
youth, lest warning might be actionable. A
little damsel, far away, doubted and hoped. The
long-haired young doctor, if Nature had not
made a fool of him had made one of himself;
but alas! not for himself alone: also for the
loving little heart that pined and sorrowed far
away. Anceps became familiar with law
procedure. He is grey, and lean, and broken—and
the little girl is dead.

Forceps had money enough to buy "opening"
after opening till all was spent. He had for his
money three visits from Corvus, of whom he
purchased: 1. A snug practice, with an open
shop, which ceased to comfort him when he
had eaten all the ginger lozenges that formed
part of the stock in trade. 2. Partnership with
a religious physician, who embezzled more than
his share of the profits on the prospect of which
Forceps married. 3. A nucleus, as it is called
(a nothing which is paid for in the hope that it
may grow to something), in a seaport town.
He has ten children, and is medical adviser to
the lighthouse. That was the nucleus, and the
lighthouse has diffused none of its rays yet into
his future. But Forceps is also surgeon to his
parish, and receives the cost of the horse he
rides and of the drugs he gives in labour for
the poor, with nothing for himself. His pains
are his own, and he is left with them.

Forceps, I am sorry to say, found Corvus
behind the mask of a high professional reputation.
He and another youth joined capitals to pay the
heavy price required for introduction to an
eminent position. They never doubted that where
fame was, there was honour also. A legal
evasion made it possible for the distinguished
Corvus to retain the cake that he had sold. The
two young men were ruined utterly. Forceps
died long since of a broken heart. His friend
lives under a blue light in a little by-street of
the London suburbs. The trim little lady of
old who was to have graced his drawing-room is
to be seen at eleven o'clock any morning in a
dirty gown, with a lean first-born clinging to it;
excusing, perhaps, her neglect of payment to the
butcher at the door, or uttering complaint to the
baker on the price of bread.

Deinceps had suspicion, but was eager.
Promise was very good in Corvus; but, would he
perform? Then said the tempter, "Another
presses me; agree now, or the opening is lost to
you." He agreed, and this good opening in life
was lost to him indeed.

Broken fortune can be mended; but, only with
time, and patience, and minute attention. It takes
long labour rightly to cement together all the
pieces of a vessel that was shattered in an
instant by a single fall. Broken fortune may be
replaced with different and better fortune, by
many who have capital enough of energy within
themselves. There is no ruin for the strong of
heart; but all hearts are not strong.

Every young doctor knows that a bought
practice is not often worth the money it has cost.
Prosperous men are not commonly disposed to
make away with half their livelihood, or all of it,
for ready money. So lightly are the grounds of
this exceptional proceeding inquired into by the
mass of beginners anxious to secure a footing in
the world, that there is a race of disreputable
doctors who live chiefly on the sale of practices.
They choose a place of independent settlement,
scrape a few patients together, and then sell
them. A marketable nucleus is made in about two
years. It is then cashed, and another is begun.
The scraps of earnings and the purchase-money,
put together, make the income of these people.
They are not people of great ability; they are
not gentlemen; yet they can make what will be
bought as good beginnings by men abler and
more honourable than themselves. Honester
men working with equal energy might possibly
dispense with service of this sort. The capital
spent on a doubtful introduction by another
man whose good word is notoriously bought,
might enable many a beginner to take
independent ground, and give him time to lay his
own foundations of success. Again and again
the word of experience is heard from all the
letters of the alphabet; "I could have done
more for myself than Corvus ever did for me,
had I relied on my own work and kept my
capital for my own uses."