oftener at the wrong times. For there is no
medical man, who has charge of the health
of a great number of the poor, who might
not, if he acceded to every demand they make
upon his energies, finally give up eating,
drinking, sitting, and sleeping, and still find
every day's twenty-four hours only half
time enough for doing all that is demanded
of him.

Then, we are often, by guardians and others,
said to be too rough and off-handed in our
dealings with the poor. Our poor patients
come to us for sympathy and advice in more
than sickness; and, although they are apt to
grumble and are sometimes thankless, they
well know that we are to the best of our power
prompt enough with a real and hearty kind of
help. Only they cannot pay us as the rich do
for palaver. We cannot afford to indulge them
with a luxury of that sort gratis, and they
have none of it. So much the better for them.
A practitioner resident for a certain time in a
district becomes conversant with all the common
aspects of disease among the people;
knows also the people and their histories; a
great number of the cases that come under
his notice are, therefore, such as can be
comprehended almost at a glance. As for the
mere talk, I think few people accustomed to
polished conversation know how much good
feeling may be exchanged in ten rough,
cheery words between a poor man and his
doctor. Talk! An old woman once said
to me as I was quitting her, "Sir, there you
go; you never hear me to the end." "Well,"
I replied, "I must go now, but next time I
come I'll stop till you have finished;" and I
made up my mind to do so. I got nothing
by her, and there was not much the matter
with her; but she had always a good many
complaints to tell me of. I resolved then as
a matter of curiosity to measure the length
of her tongue, and visited her next when I
had half an hour to spare. I sat down,
asked my patient three or four questions, and
then left her to talk, saying not a syllable
myself except by way of interjection. I went
into her room at three o'clock. My dinner
hour was five. She talked till half-past six;
and it was not until I had become ravenously
hungry that I broke down in my experiment,
and cut the thread of her discourse suddenly
short. But I went away confirmed in my
belief, that people who want mere talk—
especially talk about their bodily ailments—
never have enough. You may as well cut
them off at the sixth word as at the sixty
thousandth.

Mrs. Paggin was an old lady with just such
a long downy beard as a youth has when he
is about nineteen. She lived at the top of a hill
up which the way was short and sharp. Down
that hill she used to descend upon me, and up
that hill she used to make me drag myself on
all manner of errands. She wasn't a pauper
—Heaven forbid; and she wouldn't take
advantage of the Dispensary or anything of
that kind. She would pay what she could
afford, namely a shilling a week when there
was sickness in her house; which contained
children and grandchildren, and in which
there always was sickness. So she paid me
a shilling a week after a plan of her own,
which made it amount to about eighteenpence
a year. Now, this Mrs. Paggin, who would
not demean herself by confessing poverty,
made a profession of the most amazing piety;
and was no doubt, pious in her way. There
had once been a famous clergyman in our
parish, of whom it was recorded with much
admiration, that when his bishop offered him
a better living, he declined it, and when the
bishop asked him what he could give him,
answered piously, "Nothing, unless more
grace." Mrs. Paggin formed herself upon
the model of this clergyman, and astounded
me one morning in my surgery. At nine
o'clock there were usually a good many
waiters for medicine; and it was my custom,
when I went to them to inquire from whom
each messenger came, that I might know
generally what had to be done. On one
occasion, at the head of a file of twenty or
thirty, there sat Mrs. Paggin with a look of
resignation.

"Well, Mrs. Paggin," I said, "what do you
want?"

Here was a golden opportunity. She had
the same opportunity of saying a memorable
thing that had occurred to the eminent
divine: up, therefore, went the whites of her
eyes, and she replied, "More grace!"

Perhaps the next person would be a man
who "thought he wanted some stuff because
he was all of a dither and scrawl." That was
a man you could understand; but then there
might come another who would meddle
ignorantly with high things.

"Now then, Mrs. Eathen." Mrs. Eathen
had a face one mass of skin disease. "How
did your last medicine agree with you?"

"Oh, dear sir, it had a powerful effect."

"What effect?"

"Oh, dear sir, it was just as if the devil had
taken me by the elbow and turned me right
round."

"Well, did you go on taking it and turning
round."

"No, dear sir, by the Lord's mercy I let the
bottle fall; for if I hadn't let the bottle fall—
when by the blessings of Providence, I'm
sorry to say, sir, it was broke—I should have
been sure to have gone on taking it according
to your orders, in which case I should have
been a dead woman at this time."

These are real conversations—types of a
large class; and it is not to be wondered at if
busy weary men, who are carrying about a
day's work in their heads—however able to
make right allowances and feel right
sympathies—should sometimes, in the heat of
occupation, be made irritable by the
recurrence of such nonsense.

Let Mr. Souchong, who is so tremendous as a