s
now and then for two seconds; they are, in fact, two globules; their
head is one, invariably bald, round, and glittering; the body is another
in activity and shape, _totus teres atque rotundus;_ and in fifty years
they live five centuries. _Horum Rex Aberford_--of these our doctor was
the chief. He had hardly torn off one glove, and rolled as far as the
third flower from the door on his lordship's carpet, before he shouted:

"This is my patient, lolloping in pursuit of health. Your hand," added
he. For he was at the sofa long before his lordship could glide off it.

"Tongue. Pulse is good. Breathe in my face."

"Breathe in your face, sir! how can I do that?" (with an air of mild
doubt.)

"By first inhaling, and then exhaling in the direction required, or how
can I make acquaintance with your bowels?"

"My bowels?"

"The abdomen, and the greater and lesser intestines. Well, never mind,
I can get at them another way; give your heart a slap, so. That's your
liver. And that's your diaphragm."

His lordship having found the required spot (some people that I know
could not) and slapped it, the Aberford made a circular spring and
listened eagerly at his shoulder-blade; the result of this scientific
pantomime seemed to be satisfactory, for he exclaimed, not to say
bawled:

"Halo! here is a viscount as sound as a roach! Now, young gentleman,"
added he, "your organs are superb, yet you are really out of sorts; it
follows you have the maladies of idle minds, love, perhaps, among the
rest; you blush, a diagnostic of that disorder; make your mind easy,
cutaneous disorders, such as love, etc., shall never kill a patient of
mine with a stomach like yours. So, now to cure you!" And away went the
spherical doctor, with his hands behind him, not up and down the room,
but slanting and tacking, like a knight on a chess-board. He had not
made many steps before, turning his upper globule, without affecting
his lower, he hurled back, in a cold business-like tone, the following
interrogatory:

"What are your vices?"

"Saunders," inquired the patient, "which are my vices?"

"M'lord, lordship hasn't any vices," replied Saunders, with dull,
matter-of-fact solemnity.

"Lady Barbara makes the same complaint," thought Lord Ipsden.

"It seems I have not any vices, Dr. Aberford," said he, demurely.

"That is bad; nothing to get hold of. What interests you, then?"

"I don't remember."

"What amuses you?"

"I forget."

"What!