At seven o’clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown into the room of the homoeopathist, who, already up and dressed, had visited his patient.
“My name is Morgan,” said the homoeopathist; “I am a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him.”
The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby was very feeble, but he had recovered his consciousness, and inclined his head courteously.
“I am sorry to cause so much trouble,” said he. The homoeopathist drew away Helen; the allopathist seated himself by the bedside and put his questions, felt the pulse, sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue of the patient. Helen’s eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her colour rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and said in a pleasant voice, “You may have a little tea.”
“Tea!” growled the homeopathist,—“barbarian!”
“He is better, then, sir?” said Helen, creeping to the allopathist.
“Oh, yes, my dear,—certainly; and we shall do very well, I hope.”
The two doctors then withdrew.
“Last about a week!” said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleasantly, and showing a very white set of teeth.
“I should have said a month; but our systems are different,” replied Dr. Morgan, dryly.
DR. DOSEWELL (courteously).—“We country doctors bow to our metropolitan superiors; what would you advise? You would venture, perhaps, the experiment of bleeding.”
DR. MORGAN (spluttering and growling Welsh, which he never did but in excitement).—“Pleed! Cott in heaven! do you think I am a putcher,—an executioner? Pleed! Never.”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“I don’t find it answer, myself, when both lungs are gone! But perhaps you are for inhaling?”
DR. MORGAN.—“Fiddledee!”
DR. DOSEWELL (with some displeasure).—“What would you advise, then, in order to prolong our patient’s life for a month?”
DR. MORGAN.—“Give him Rhus!”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“Rhus, sir! Rhus! I don’t know that medicine. Rhus!”
Dr. MORGAN.—“Rhus Toxicodendron.”
The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell’s respect. A word of five syllables,—that was something like! He bowed deferentially, but still looked puzzled. At last he said, smiling frankly, “You great London practitioners have so many new medicines: may I ask what Rhus toxico—toxico—”
“Dendron.”
“Is?”
“The juice of the upas,—vulgarly called the poison-tree.” Dr. Dosewell started.
“Upas—poison-tree—little birds that come under the shade fall down dead! You give upas juice in these desperate cases: what’s the dose?”
Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule the size of a small pin’s head.
Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust.
“Oh!” said he, very coldly, and assuming at once an air of superb superiority, “I see, a homoeopathist, sir!”
“A homoeopathist.”
“Um!”
“Um!”
“A strange system, Dr. Morgan,” said Dr. Dosewell, recovering his cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in it, “and would soon do for the druggists.”
“Serve ‘em right. The druggists soon do for the patients.”
“Sir!”
“Sir!”
DR. DOSEWELL (with dignity).—“You don’t know, perhaps, Dr. Morgan, that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. In fact,” he added, with a certain grand humility, “I have not yet taken a diploma, and am but doctor by courtesy.”
DR. MORGAN.—“All one, sir! Doctor signs the death-warrant, ‘pothecary does the deed!”
DR. DOSEWELL (with a withering sneer).—“Certainly we don’t profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree.”
DR. MORGAN (complacently).—“Of course you don’t. There are no poisons with us. That’s just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell.”
DR. DOSEWELL (pointing to the homeopathist’s travelling pharmacopoeia, and with affected candour).—“Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals.”
DR. MORGAN, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of poisoning, fires up violently at the charge of doing no harm. “You know nothing about it! I could kill quite as many people as you, if I chose it; but I don’t choose.”
DR. DOSEWELL (shrugging his shoulders).—“Sir Sir! It is no use arguing; the thing’s against common-sense. In short, it is my firm belief that it is—is a complete—”
DR. MORGAN.—“A complete what?”
DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost).—“Humbug!”
DR. MORGAN.—“Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old—”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“Old what, sir?”
DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).—“Old allopathical anthropophagite!”
DR. DOSEWELL (starting up, seizing by the back the chair on which he had sat, and bringing it down violently on its four legs).—“Sir!”
DR. MORGAN (imitating the action with his own chair).—“Sir!”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“You’re abusive.”
DR. MORGAN.—“You’re impertinent.”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“Sir!”
DR. MORGAN.—“Sir!”
The two rivals confronted each other.
They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dosewell was the taller, but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. Dosewell on the mother’s side was Irish; but Dr. Morgan on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I would have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, luckily for the honour of science, here the chambermaid knocked at the door, and said, “The coach is coming, sir.”
Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at that announcement. “Dr. Dosewell,” said he, “I have been too hot,—I apologize.”
“Dr. Morgan,” answered the allopathist, “I forgot myself. Your hand, sir.”
DR. MORGAN.—“We are both devoted to humanity, though with different opinions. We should respect each other.”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“Where look for liberality, if men of science are illiberal to their brethren?”
DR. MORGAN (aside).—“The old hypocrite! He would pound me in a mortar if the law would let him.”
DR. DOSEWELL (aside).—“The wretched charlatan! I should like to pound him in a mortar.”
DR. MORGAN.—“Good-by, my esteemed and worthy brother.”
DR. DOSEWELL.—“My excellent friend, good-by.”
DR. MORGAN (returning in haste).—“I forgot. I don’t think our poor patient is very rich. I confide him to your disinterested benevolence.” (Hurries away.)
DR. DOSEWELL (in a rage).—“Seven miles at six o’clock in the morning, and perhaps done out of my fee! Quack! Villain!”
Meanwhile, Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room.
“I must wish you farewell,” said he to poor Mr. Digby, who was languidly sipping his tea. “But you are in the hands of a—of a—gentleman in the profession.”
“You have been too kind,—I am shocked,” said Mr. Digby. “Helen, where’s my purse?”
Dr. Morgan paused.
He paused, first, because it must be owned that his practice was restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity natural to unappreciated talent, and had the charm of novelty, which is sweet to human nature itself. Secondly, he was a man—
“Who knew his rights; and, knowing, dared maintain.”
He had resigned a coach fare, stayed a night, and thought he had relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee.
On the other hand, he paused, because, though he had small practice, he was tolerably well off, and did not care for money in itself, and he suspected his patient to be no Croesus.
Meanwhile the purse was in Helen’s hand. He took it from her, and saw but a few sovereigns within the well-worn network. He drew the child a little aside.
“Answer me, my dear, frankly,—is your papa rich?—” And he glanced at the shabby clothes strewed on the chair and Helen’s faded frock.
“Alas, no!” said Helen, hanging her head. “Is that all you have?”
“All.”
“I am ashamed to offer you two guineas,” said Mr. Digby’s hollow voice from the bed.
“And I should be still more ashamed to take them. Good by, sir. Come here, my child. Keep your money, and don’t waste it on the other doctor more than you can help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I suppose you must have some. He’s no physician, therefore there’s no fee. He’ll send a bill,—it can’t be much. You understand. And now, God bless you.”
Dr. Morgan was off. But, as he paid the landlady his bill, he said considerately, “The poor people upstairs can pay you, but not that doctor,—and he’s of no use. Be kind to the little girl, and get the doctor to tell his patient (quietly of course) to write to his friends—soon—you understand. Somebody must take charge of the poor child. And stop—hold your hand; take care—these globules for the little girl when her father dies,”—here the doctor muttered to himself, “grief,—aconite, and if she cries too much afterwards, these—(don’t mistake). Tears,—caustic!”
“Come, sir,” cried the coachman.
“Coming; tears,—caustic,” repeated the homoeopathist, pulling out his handkerchief and his phial-book together as he got into the coach; and he hastily swallowed his antilachrymal.
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