leman and the baron opened a door and passed into another room.
As the door closed after them, I heard a loud and dismal groan. One of
the two remaining gentlemen then asked me if I had been long in Paris.

I told him.

"Ah, you haven't seen the new opera, then?" said he--just as we should
say, when put to it for conversation--What frightful, or what beautiful
weather this is! Before I could reply, there was another fearful groan
from the adjoining room, but my new acquaintance proceeded without
noticing it.

"You have nothing like our _Academie_ in London, I believe?"

I was about to vindicate the Italian Opera, when the two surgeons again
appeared. The baron in a few words said, that there was nothing to be
done but to operate, and at once, if the life of the patient were to be
spared at all. The three practitioners--for such they were--bowed in
acquiescence, and the baron prepared his instruments.

It is the fashion to speak of medical men slightingly, if not
reproachfully; to accuse them of practising solemn impositions, and of
being, at the best, but so many legalized charlatans. It is especially
the mode of speaking amongst those who will give "the doctor" no rest,
and are not satisfied until they make that functionary the most constant
visitor at their abodes. No one would have dared to breathe one syllable
of disrespect against the surgeon's sacred office, who could have seen
as I did, the operation which the baron performed this day. It has been
done successfully three times within the memory of man; twice by
himself, who first attempted it. It was grand to mark his calm and
intellectual face--to see the hand--armed with the knife that cut for
life or death--firm and unshaken as the mind that urged, the eye that
followed, its unerring course. I could understand the worship that was
paid to this incomparable master, by all that knew his power. Within
five minutes by the clock, and in the sight of men whose breathless
admiration made them oblivious of the throes of the poor sufferer, the
process was completed, and the endangered life restored. The baron left
the fainting invalid, retired for a few seconds, and prescribed. He
returned and felt his pulse--and then, turning to the man with whom he
had first spoken, said--

"Should any thing arise, sir, you will acquaint me with it."

"Unquestionably. He will do well?"

"No doubt of it. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, baron," said the gentleman obsequiously.