tor says his patient's dead without
feeling a pulse or lifting an eyelid."

"You, at all events, ought to know a corpse from a live man," cried the
fat medico, growing irate, "when it's whispered that you have made as
many dead bodies in the town itself as would serve for a couple of
battles and a few scrimmages to boot."

"And you, Doctor Murphy, have poisoned one-half of your patients, and
the others only survive because they throw the physic you send them to
the dogs."

"Come, gentlemen," exclaimed the major, "while you are squabbling, any
spark of life the poor boy may contain will be ebbing away. As I am not
acquainted with the skill you respectively possess, I beg that you,
Doctor Murphy, as holding the higher grade in your profession, will
examine the boy, and express your opinion whether he is dead or alive,
and state, if there's life in him, which you consider the best way to
bring him round, and set him on his feet again."

Mr O'Shea, on hearing this, stepped back a few paces, and, folding his
arms, looked with supreme contempt on the little doctor, who, stooping
down over Larry with watch in hand, at which he mechanically gazed with
a serious countenance, felt his pulse.

"His hand is cold and clammy, and there's not a single thump in his
arteries," he said with solemn gravity; and letting fall Larry's hand he
proceeded to examine his neck. "The vertebra broken, cracked,
dislocated," he continued, in the same solemn tone. "D'ye see this
black mark down his throat? it's amply sufficient to account for death.
I hereby certify that this is a corpse before me, and authorise that he
may be sent home to his friends for Christian burial."

"Och ahone! och ahone!" I cried out, throwing myself by the side of the
mattress. "Is Larry really dead? Oh, doctors dear, can't both of you
put your heads together and try to bring him to life again?"

"When the breath is out of the body, 'tis more than all the skill of the
most learned practitioners can accomplish," exclaimed Doctor Murphy,
rising from his knees. "I pronounce the boy dead, and no power on earth
can bring him round again."

"I hold to the contrary opinion," said Mr O'Shea, advancing and drawing
out of his pocket a case of instruments, from which he produced a large
operation knife, and began to strop it on the palm of his hand. "It's
fortunate for the boy that he didn't move, or Doctor Murphy would have
been thrusting one of his big boluses down