ke a pair of
boots or brogans. I don't know that I have put it quite strong enough.
Let me try again. You've seen those fellows at the circus that get up on
horseback so big that you wonder how they could climb into the saddle.
But pretty soon they throw off their outside coat, and the next minute
another one, and then the one under that, and so they keep peeling off
one garment after another till people begin to look queer and think they
are going too far for strict propriety. Well, that is the way a
fellow with a real practical turn serves a good many of his scientific
wrappers, flings 'em off for other people to pick up, and goes right
at the work of curing stomach-aches and all the other little mean
unscientific complaints that make up the larger part of every doctor's
business. I think our Dr. Benjamin is a worthy young man, and if you are
in need of a doctor at any time I hope you will go to him; and if you
come off without harm, I will recommend some other friend to try him.

--I thought he was going to say he would try him in his own person, but
the Master is not fond of committing himself.

Now, I will answer your other question, he said. The lawyers are the
cleverest men, the ministers are the most learned, and the doctors are
the most sensible.

The lawyers are a picked lot, "first scholars" and the like, but
their business is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's. There is nothing
humanizing in their relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for
the side that retains them. They defend the man they know to be a rogue,
and not very rarely throw suspicion on the man they know to be innocent.
Mind you, I am not finding fault with them; every side of a case has a
right to the best statement it admits of; but I say it does not tend
to make them sympathetic. Suppose in a case of Fever vs. Patient, the
doctor should side with either party according to whether the old miser
or his expectant heir was his employer. Suppose the minister should side
with the Lord or the Devil, according to the salary offered and other
incidental advantages, where the soul of a sinner was in question. You
can see what a piece of work it would make of their sympathies. But the
lawyers are quicker witted than either of the other professions, and
abler men generally. They are good-natured, or, if they quarrel, their
quarrels are above-board. I don't think they are as accomplished as the
ministers, but they have a way of cramming with speci