ou might also inquire whether there had been any partial
paralysis or numbness in any part of the body. These things must be
looked for in brain trouble. Then you can come down, ostensibly to
prepare another prescription, and when you have reported, I have no
doubt I can give you something which will modify, or I should say--"

"Hold her where she is till mornin'," said Uncle Beamish. "That's what
you mean. Be quick. Give me that thermometer and the tumbler, and
when I come down again, I reckon you can fit her out with a
prescription just as good as anybody."

He hurried away, and I sat down to consider. I was full of ambition,
full of enthusiasm for the practice of my profession. I would have
been willing to pay largely for the privilege of undertaking an
important case by myself, in which it would depend upon me whether or
not I should call in a consulting brother. So far, in the cases I had
undertaken, a consulting brother had always called himself in--that is,
I had practised in hospitals or with my uncle. Perhaps it might be
found necessary, notwithstanding all that had been said against me,
that I should go up to take charge of this case. I wished I had not
forgotten to ask the old man how he had found the tongue and pulse.

In less than a quarter of an hour Uncle Beamish returned.

"Well," said I, quickly, "what are the symptoms?"

"I'll give them to you," said he, taking his seat. "I'm not in such a
hurry now, because I told the old woman I would like to wait a little
and see how that fust medicine acted. The patient spoke to me this
time. When I took the thermometer out of her mouth she says, `You are
comin' up ag'in, doctor?' speakin' low and quickish, as if she wanted
nobody but me to hear."

"But how about the symptoms?" said I, impatiently.

"Well," he answered, "in the fust place her temperature is ninety-eight
and a half, and that's about nat'ral, I take it."

"Yes," I said, "but you didn't tell me about her tongue and pulse."

"There wasn't nothin' remarkable about them," said he.

"All of which means," I remarked, "that there is no fever. But that is
not at all a necessary accompaniment of brain derangements. How about
the dilatation of her pupils?"

"There isn't none," said Uncle Beamish; "they are ruther squinched up,
if anything. And as to delirium, I couldn't see no signs of it, and
when I asked the old lady about the numbness, she said she didn't
believe there had been an