ty, I was bought cheap by a young
physician, who having rashly left his provincial patients to set up in
London, took it into his head that nothing could be done there by a
medical man who did not go upon wheels; he therefore hired a house in a
good situation, and then set _me_ up, and bid my vendor put me down in
his bill.

It is quite astonishing how we flew about the streets and squares,
_acting great practice_; those who knew us by sight must have thought we
had a great deal to do, but we practised nothing but locomotion. Some
medical men thin the population, (so says Slander,) my master thinned
nothing but his horses. They were the only _good jobs_ that came in his
way, and certainly he made the most of them. He was obliged to _feed_
them, but he was very rarely _feed_ himself. It so happened that nobody
consulted us, and the unavoidable consumption of the family infected my
master's pocket, and his little resources were in a rapid decline.

Still he kept a good heart; indeed, in one respect, he resembled a
worm displayed in a bottle in a quack's shop window--he was never out of
spirits! He was deeply in debt, and his name was on every body's books,
always excepting the memorandum-books of those who wanted physicians.
Still I was daily turned out, and though nobody called him in, he was to
be seen, sitting very forward, apparently looking over notes supposed
to have been taken after numerous critical cases and eventful
consultations. Our own case was hopeless, our progress was arrested,
an execution was in the house, servants met with their deserts and were
turned off, goods were seized, my master was knocked up, and I was
knocked down for one hundred and twenty pounds.

Again my beauties blushed for a while unseen; but I was new painted,
and, like some other painted personages, looked, at a distance, almost
as good as new. Fortunately for me, an elderly country curate, just at
this period, was presented with a living, and the new incumbent thought
it incumbent upon him to present his fat lady and his thin daughter with
a leathern convenience. My life was now a rural one, and for ten long
years nothing worth recording happened to me. Slowly and surely did I
creep along green lanes, carried the respectable trio to snug, early,
neighbourly dinners, and was always under lock and key before twelve
o'clock. It must be owned I began to have rather an old-fashioned look;
my body was ridiculously small, and the rector's