no winning horse to gallop away your rents?"

"No, sir!"

"No opera girl to run her foot and ankle through your purse?"

"No, sir! and I think their ankles are not what they were."

"Stuff! just the same, from their ankles up to their ears, and down
again to their morals; it is your eyes that are sunk deeper into your
head. Hum! no horses, no vices, no dancers, no yacht; you confound one's
notions of nobility, and I ought to know them, for I have to patch them
all up a bit just before they go to the deuce."

"But I have, Doctor Aberford."

"What!"

"A yacht! and a clipper she is, too."

"Ah!--(Now I've got him.)"

"In the Bay of Biscay she lay half a point nearer the wind than Lord
Heavyjib."

"Oh! bother Lord Heavyjib, and his Bay of Biscay."

"With all my heart, they have often bothered me."

"Send her round to Granton Pier, in the Firth of Forth."

"I will, sir."

"And write down this prescription." And away he walked again, thinking
the prescription.

"Saunders," appealed his master.

"Saunders be hanged."

"Sir!" said Saunders, with dignity, "I thank you."

"Don't thank me, thank your own deserts," replied the modern
Chesterfield. "Oblige me by writing it yourself, my lord, it is all the
bodily exercise you will have had to-day, no doubt."

The young viscount bowed, seated himself at a desk, and wrote from
dictation:

"DR. ABERFORD'S PRESCRIPTION."

"Make acquaintance with all the people of low estate who have time to be
bothered with you; learn their ways, their minds, and, above all, their
troubles."

"Won't all this bore me?" suggested the writer.

"You will see. Relieve one fellow-creature every day, and let Mr.
Saunders book the circumstances."

"I shall like this part," said the patient, laying down his pen. "How
clever of you to think of such things; may not I do two sometimes?"

"Certainly not; one pill per day. Write, Fish the herring! (that beats
deer-stalking.) Run your nose into adventures at sea; live on tenpence,
and earn it. Is it down?"

"Yes, it is down, but Saunders would have written it better."

"If he hadn't he ought to be hanged," said the Aberford, inspecting the
work. "I'm off, where's my hat? oh, there; where's my money? oh, here.
Now look here, follow my prescription, and You will soon have Mens
sana in corpore sano; And not care whether the girls say yes or say no;
neglect it, and--my gloves; oh, in my pocket--you will be _blase'_ and
_ennuye',_ and