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."

[Footnote 9: From Chapter V of "The Poet at the Breakfast Table."
Copyright, 1872, 1891, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Published by
Houghton, Mifflin Company.]

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 special knowledge fo