Rachel at home, and Julia here will tell you
what he did for her. I assure you, she's not like
the same creature. Now, you will send for
Dr. Flook, won't you? or, stay, I shall see Dr.
Flook to-day—this very afternoon—and I will
send him on to you; yes, that will be the best
way!"

Or it may be that you yourself are the
Doctor's partisan. Your friend, Mr. Pukey,
has, in an evil hour for himself, mentioned to
you that his digestion is not what he could
wish; that he can't digest the commonest,
simplest things; that the other day he dined
with old Yellowgills quite alone—bit of salmon,
lobster sauce, nice cool cucumber, Irish stew,
roast pork (with some remarkably good stuffing),
and a duck to wind up with—no, by-the-by,
there was some dressed crab for a finish. Well;
Pukey assures you that he passed the most
dreadful night possible, after partaking of this
simple meal; as to the wine, it couldn't have
been that, because he confined himself entirely to
two kinds, sparkling Moselle and claret. What
was the meaning of his digestion being disturbed
after an entertainment so rational and wholesome,
Pukey begs to know? "I'll tell you
what's the meaning of it!" you reply, with profundity.
"The meaning of it, is, your liver's
affected. I've no more doubt of it than that I'm
standing here. Now, you take my advice and
see Bacon. Bacon is the only man now-a-days
who can touch the liver. It's a well-known
fact; all his brother practitioners admit it; and
directly a bad case of liver is brought before
them, their first remark is: 'I should like to
meet Bacon about this case; Bacon knows more
about the liver than any man in the profession.
In fact, he's been mixed up with it, all his life!'"

In both these cases, failure is the issue of
all this disinterested touting. Mr. and Mrs.
Spooner had got on very well under the care of
their usual attendant, Dr. Pilkington: while
Dr. Flook, who is at last really forced upon
them by the enthusiastic Mrs. Creakingate,
does not suit the worthy couple at all. Flook's
first proceeding frightens them out of their
wits; his first visit is his last; and Mrs. Creakingate
is so much offended that a coolness is
gradually established between the families, the
temperature of which coolness declines and
declines until at last it ends in a permanent hard
frost, thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit. And besides
all this, Dr. Pilkington is so hurt at being
superseded by Flook, that he declines ever to
enter the abode of the Spooners again. If the
Spooners had not about this time found out Dr.
Bacon, for themselves, it is impossible to say
what would have become of them.

And yet, after this painful experience, here is
Spooner himself, recommending his friend Pukey
to consult Dr. Bacon about his liver.  And
what is the consequence? The next time
Pukey and Spooner meet, the former is in a
state of the most violent indignation compatible
with the feebleness of his frame. "How could
you send that man to me?" he asks. "He
has nearly killed me. The man must be a
horse-doctor, surely. I declare to you that,
for a whole week, I have been lying in a
condition betwen life and death, in consequence
of the awful violence of the drugs which the
inhuman wretch administered to me. Even
now, I believe it will be months before I
am able to get up my strength again."  The
unhappy Pukey has a transparent look which
almost deprives Spooner of the power of defending
his medical favourite; still he makes
the attempt. "But, perhaps, this may be part
of the right treatment of the case, and as you
advance further—" " Advance further!"
cries P.: "you need not trouble yourself about
that. Dr. Bacon has received his congé, and
will never enter my house again, I promise
you." " Ah, you haven't given him a fair trial,"
says Spooner.  And so here is another coolness
established, and all through this pernicious
touting on the part of private friends.

"Now just 'ave the goodness to look at this,
will you," says a certain friend of yours: to
whom, as possessed of immense wealth, you
have introduced a young painter-friend who
paints portraits. "Did you ever see such a
thing?" continues your moneyed friend, exhibiting
his likeness as completed and sent home by
your protégé. "I don't set up for being
handsome, but I will say, that when I look
in my glass of a morning, it does tell me a
pleasanter tale than that.  And it's vulgar, too,
mind you, that's what I feel most. It's vulgar
and staring, and brazen, and not the gentleman.
The very clothes don't seem to fit—and I go to
Poole, mind you, and pay him, too, which is
more than every West-ender can say.  He
might have done the clothes right, at any rate."

What are you to say to this? The portrait
is there before you, an utter failure. Your
young friend the painter is one of those
practitioners who may be said to have a fine eye for
the Ugly. He does the thing before him, but
the ugliest version of the thing. Every defect
in the original is sought out and dwelt upon
with intense relish. And you knew all this.
But then he's such a good fellow, and doesn't
get on particularly well, and you used to know
his father: all excellent reasons why your
friend should be let in for a bad portrait. "I'll
pay for it, mind you," says Civis as he takes
leave of you, "but I'll never hang it up, nor
show it to anybody."

As the worthy Civis has imparted this last
intention a day or two before, to the man of
genius himself, this last is not much better
pleased with his sitter than his sitter is with
him.  "Of course it was very kind of you," says
young Titian, "to recommend me and get
me the job and that sort of thing, but upon my
word that friend of yours is the most insufferable
purse-proud snob I ever had any transaction
with in the whole course of my life. Let
me have a gentleman to deal with, and I don't
care; but a tradesman—a man from the wrong
side of Temple Bar—they're all alike! They
would lord it over Michael Angelo if they had
the chance."