“May I ask you to bring the actual linen used at table

At this huge inquiry whirring tip all in a moment, like a cock-pheasant in a wood, Mrs. Dodd sank back in her chair despondent. Seeing her _hors de combat,_ Sampson turned to Julia and demanded, twice as loud, "WHAT IS MAN?" Julia opened two violet eyes at him, and then looked at her mother for a hint how to proceed.

"How can that child answer such a question?" sighed Mrs. Dodd. "Let us return to the point."

"I have never strayed an inch from it. It's about 'Young Physic.'"

"No, excuse me, it is about a young lady. Universal Medicine: what have I to do with that?"

"Now this is the way with them all," cried Sampson, furious; "there lowed John Bull. The men and women of this benighted nashin have an ear for anything, provided it matters nothing: talk Jology, Conchology, Entomology, Theology, Meteorology, Astronomy, Deuteronomy, Botheronomy, or Boshology, and one is listened to with rivirence, because these are all far-off things in fogs; but at a word about the great, near, useful art of Healing, y'all stop your ears; for why? your life and dailianhourly happiness depend on it. But 'no,' sis John Bull, the knowledge of our own buddies, and how to save our own Bakin--Beef I mean--day by day, from disease and chartered ass-ass-ins, all that may interest the thinkers in Saturn, but what the deevil is it t' _us?_ Talk t' _us_ of the hiv'nly buddies, not of our own; babble o' comets an' meteors an' Ethereal nibulae (never mind the nibulae in our own skulls). Discourse t' us of Predistinashin, Spitzbairgen seaweed, the last novel, the siventh vile; of Chrisehinising the Patagonians on condition they are not to come here and Chrischinise the Whitechapelians; of the letter to the _Times_ from the tinker wrecked at Timbuctoo; and the dear Professor's lecture on the probabeelity of snail-shells in the backyard of the moon: but don't ask us to know ourselves--Ijjits!!"

The eloquent speaker, depressed by the perversity of Englishmen in giving their minds to every part of creation but their bodies, suffered a momentary loss of energy; then Mrs. Dodd, who had long been watching lynx-like, glided in. "Let us compound. You are for curing all the world, beginning with Nobody. My ambition is to cure _my girl,_ and leave mankind in peace. Now, if you will begin with _my Julia,_ I will submit to rectify the universe in its proper turn. Any time will do to set the human race right; you own it is in no hurry: but _my child's_ case presses; so do pray cure her for me. Or at least tell me what her Indisposition is."

"Oh! What! didn't I tell you? Well, there's nothing the matter with her."

At receiving this cavalier reply for the reward of all her patience, Mrs. Dodd was so hurt, and so nearly angry, that she rose with dignity from her seat, her cheek actually pink, and the water in her eyes. Sampson saw she was ruffled, and appealed to Julia--of all people. "There now, Miss Julia," said he, ruefully; "she is in a rage because I won't humbug her. Poplus voolt decipee. I tell you, ma'am, it is not a midical case. Give me disease and I'll cure 't. Stop, I'll tell ye what do: let her take and swallow the Barkton Docks' prescriptions, and Butcher Best's, and canting Kinyon's, and after those four tinkers there'll be plenty holes to mend; then send for me!"