oney--I set out for London

The fumes of my resentment being dissipated, as well as the vanity of my
success, I found myself deserted to all the horrors of extreme want, and
avoided by mankind as a creature of a different species, or rather as a
solitary being, noways comprehended within the scheme or protection of
Providence. My despair had rendered me almost quite stupified, when
I was one day told, that a gentleman desired to see me at a certain
public-house, whither immediately I repaired; and was introduced to one
Mr. Launcelot Crab, a surgeon in town, who was engaged with two more in
drinking a liquor called pop-in, composed by mixing a quartern of
brandy with a quart of small beer. Before I relate the occasion of
this message, I believe it will not be disagreeable to the reader, if I
describe the gentleman who sent for me, and mention some circumstances
of his character and conduct which may illustrate what follows, and
account for his behaviour to me.

This member of the faculty was aged fifty, about five feet high, and ten
round the belly; his face was as capacious as a full moon, and much of
the complexion of a mulberry: his nose, resembling a powder-horn, was
swelled to an enormous size, and studded all over with carbuncles; and
his little gray eyes reflected the rays in such an oblique manner that,
while he looked a person full in the face, one would have imagined
he was admiring the buckle of his shoe. He had long entertained
an implacable resentment against Potion, who, though a younger
practitioner, was better employed than he, and once had the assurance to
perform a cure, whereby he disappointed and disgraced the prognostic
of the said Crab. This quarrel which was at one time upon the point of
being made up, by the interposition and mediation of friends, had been
lately inflamed beyond a possibility of reconciliation by the respective
wives of the opponents, who, chancing to meet at a christening,
disagreed about precedence, proceeded from invectives to blows, and were
with great difficulty, by the gossips, prevented from converting the
occasion of joy into a scene of lamentation.

The difference between these rivals was in the height of rancour, when I
received the message of Crab, who received me as civilly as I could have
expected from one of his disposition; and, after desiring me to sit,
inquired into the particulars of my leaving the house of Potion; which
when I had related, he said, with a ma