urselves."

The sedative had the desired effect. "Well, sir, to tell you the truth,"
he said, in a more human tone of voice, "I do not clearly understand
what it is."

"Exactly; and therefore I think we had better leave the cure to Nature,
and not interfere with her mode of treatment."

"Perhaps it would be better."

"No doubt. And now, since I have to lie here on my back, and feel rather
lonely, I should like to have a talk with you. You are not in a hurry, I
hope?"

"Not at all. My assistant knows where I am, and will send for me if I am
required."

"So you have an assistant, have you?"

"Oh, yes; a very sharp young fellow, who has been two years in the
Feldsher school, and has now come here to help me and learn more by
practice. That is a new way. I never was at a school of the kind myself,
and had to pick up what I could when a servant in the hospital. There
were, I believe, no such schools in my time. The one where my assistant
learned was opened by the Zemstvo."

"The Zemstvo is the new local administration, is it not?"

"Exactly so. And I could not do without the assistant," continued my new
acquaintance, gradually losing his rigidity, and showing himself, what
he really was, a kindly, talkative man. "I have often to go to other
villages, and almost every day a number of peasants come here. At first
I had very little to do, for the people thought I was an official, and
would make them pay dearly for what I should give them; but now they
know that they don't require to pay, and come in great numbers. And
everything I give them--though sometimes I don't clearly understand what
the matter is--seems to do them good. I believe that faith does as much
as physic."

"In my country," I remarked, "there is a sect of doctors who get the
benefit of that principle. They give their patients two or three little
balls no bigger than a pin's head, or a few drops of tasteless liquid,
and they sometimes work wonderful cures."

"That system would not do for us. The Russian muzhik would have no
faith if he swallowed merely things of that kind. What he believes in is
something with a very bad taste, and lots of it. That is his idea of a
medicine; and he thinks that the more he takes of a medicine the better
chance he has of getting well. When I wish to give a peasant several
doses I make him come for each separate dose, for I know that if I did
not he would probably swallow the whole as soon as he was out of sight.
But