rites
directions? Well, my insides are out of order, and I prescribes for
myself--black draughts `omnes duas horas sumendum;' and now he says
that, as the ingredients are all gone, I shan't take any more."

"And pray what were the ingredients, Tom?"

"Why, laxative and alterative, as suits my complaint--Extract. liquor.--
aqua pura--haustus."

"And what is that?"

"_Liquorice and water_, to be sure; there's nothing else I can take:
I've tasted everything in the shop, from plate powder to aqua fortis,
and everything goes against my stomach."

"Well, Tom, it's a hard case; but perhaps the doctor will think better
of it."

"He'd better, or I'll set up for myself, for I won't stand it any
longer; it ain't only for myself but for others that I care. Why, I've
a hankering for Anny Whistle (you know her, don't you?) a pretty little
girl with red lips--lives in Church Street. Well, as long as I could
bring her a bit of liquorice when I went to see her all was smooth
enough, and I got many a kiss when no one was nigh; but now that I can't
fork out a bit as big as a marble, she's getting quite shy of me, and is
always walking with Bill, the butcher's boy. I know he gives her
bulls'-eyes--I seed him one day buying a ha'porth. Now, ain't that
hard?"

"Why, certainly, the affair becomes serious; but still, how you are to
set up for yourself I don't know. You are not qualified."

"Oh! ain't I? Just as much as most doctors are. There must be a
beginning, and if I gives wrong medicine at first, then I'll try
another, and so on, until I come to what will cure them. Soon learn,
Tom."

"Well, but how will you do about surgery?"

"Surgery? Oh, I'll do very well; don't know much about it just now--
soon learn."

"Why, would you venture to take off a man's leg, Tom? Do you know how
to take up the arteries?"

"Would I take off a man's leg? To be sure I would, as quick as the
doctor could. As for, the arteries, why, I might puzzle a little about
them; but by the time I had taken off three or four legs I should know
something about them. Practice makes perfect--soon learn, Tom."

"But all your first patients would die."

"I don't know that. At all events I should do my best, and no man can
do more, and if they did die, why, it would be by the visitation of God,
wouldn't it?"

"Not altogether, I'm afraid. It won't do, Tom."

"It has done from the beginning of the world, and will do. I say
there's no learni