VERY HARD CASH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

CHAPTER V.

MRS. DODD knew her man (ladies are very
apt to fathom their male acquaintance—too apt,
I think); and, to pin him to the only medical
theme which interested her, seized the opportunity
while he was in actual contact with Julia's
wrist, and rapidly enumerated her symptoms, and
also told him what Mr. Osmond had said about
Hyperœsthesia.

"GOOSE GREECE!" barked Sampson, loud, clear,
and sharp as an irritated watch-dog; but this one
bow-wow vented, he was silent as abruptly.

Mrs. Dodd smiled, and proceeded to Hyperœmia,
and thence to the Antiphlogistic Regimen.

At that unhappy adjective, Sampson jumped
up, cast away his patient's hand, forgot her
existence—she was but a charming individual—
and galloped into his native region, Generalities.

"Antiphlogistic! Mai—dear—mad'm, that
one long fragment of ass's jaw has slain a million.
Adapted to the weakness of human nature, which
receives with rivirince ideas, however childish,
that come draped in long tailed, and exotic words,
that aasinine polysyllable has riconciled the
modern mind to the chimeras of th' ancients, and
outbutchered the guillotine, the musket, and the
sword: ay, and but for me
               Had barred the door
               For cinturies more,
on the great coming science, the science of
healing diseases instead of defining, and dividing
'em, and lengthening their names and their
durashin, and shortening nothing but the pashint.
Th' antiphlogistic Therey is this: That Disease
is fiery, and that any artificial exhaustion of vital
force must cool the system, and reduce the morbid
fire, called, in their donkey Latin, 'flamma,'
and in their compound donkey Latin, 'inflammation,'
and, in their Goose Greece, 'phlogosis,'
'phlegmon,' &c. And accordingly th'
antiphlogistic Practice is, to cool the sick man by
bleeding him, and, when blid, either to rebleed
him with a change of instrument, bites and stabs
instid of gashes, or else to rake the blid, and
then blister the blid and raked, and then push
mercury till the teeth of the blid, raked, and
blistered shake in their sockets, and to starve
the blid, purged, salivated, blistered wretch from
first to last. This is the Antiphlogistic system.
It is seldom carried out entire, because the
pashint at the first or second link in their remedial
chain, expires; or else gives such plain
signs of sinking, that even these ass-ass-ins
take fright, and try t' undo their own work, not
disease's, by tonics an' turtle, and stimulants;
which things given at the right time instid of the
wrong, given when the patient was merely
weakened by his disorder, and not enfeebled by
their didly remedies, would have cut th' ailment
down in a few hours."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Dodd; "and now, my
good friend, with respect to my daughter—"

"N' list me!" clashed Sampson; "ye're
going to fathom th' antiphlogistics, since they
still survive an' slay in holes and corners like
Barkton an d'ltly; I've driven the vamperes out
o' the cintres o' civilisation. Begin with their
coolers! Exhaustion is not a cooler, it is a
feverer, and they know it; the way parrots know
sentences. Why are we all more or less feverish
at night? because we are weaker. Starvation is
no cooler, it is an inflamer, and they know it, as
parrots know truths, but can't apply them: for
they know that burning fever rages in ivery
town, street, camp, where Famine is. As for
bloodletting, their prime cooler, it is inflammatory;
and they know it (parrot-wise), for the
thumping heart, and bounding pulse, of pashints
blid by butchers in black, and bullocks blid by
butchers in blue, prove it; and they have
recorded this in all their books: yet stabbed, and bit,
and starved, and mercuried, and murdered, on.
But mind ye, all their sham coolers are real
weakeners (I wonder they didn't inventory
Satin and his brimstone lake among their refrijrators),
and this is the point whence t' appreciate
their imbecility, and the sairvice I have rendered
mankind in being the first t' attack their banded
school, at a time it seemed imprignable."

"Ah, this promises to be very interesting,"
sighed Mrs. Dodd; "and before you enter on so
large a field, perhaps it would be as well to
dispose of a little matter which lies at my heart.
Here is my poor daughter—"

"NLISSMEE! A human Bean is in a constant
state of flux and reflux; his component particles
move, change, disappear, and are renewed; his
life is a round of exhaustion and repair. Of this