Chapter 28
"_Did she break the pitcher, Johnny?_"
To Mrs. Bray's book we are again indebted for the following:--
"A _bon-vivant_, brought to his death-bed by an immoderate use of wine, was one day informed by his physician that he could not, in all human probability, survive many hours, and that he would die before eight o'clock the following morning, summoned all his remaining strength to call the doctor back, and, when the physician had returned, made an ineffectual attempt to rise in bed, saying, with the true recklessness of an innate gambler,--
"'Doctor, I'll bet you some bottles that I live till _nine_!'"
"LET GO THE HALLIARDS."
A sailor was taken with the pleurisy on board a vessel that was hauling through the "seven bridges" that span the Charles River from the Navy Yard to Cambridgeport, and a well-known physician, rather of the Falstaffian make-up, whom I may as well call Dr. Jones,--because that is _not_ his name,--was summoned. He prescribed for the patient, and when the schooner touched the pier of the bridge, he stepped ash.o.r.e, as was supposed by the captain and crew, whose whole attention was required to keep the vessel from driving against the drawer; but "there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip," and the old doctor had taken the "slip," and went plump overboard, unseen by any.
In his descent he grasped at a rope, which happened to be the jib halliards, and as he came up, puffing and blowing the salt water from his mouth and nose, he began to haul "hand-over-hand" at the halliards. His corpulency overbalanced the jib, and gradually the sail began to ascend, to the astonishment of the cook, who stood near by, and to the wrath of the captain on the quarter-deck.
"Let go the jib halliards, there, you confounded _slush_," roared the captain.
"I ain't h'isting the jib," replied the terrified cook, believing that the sail was bewitched, for sailors are quite superst.i.tious, you know.
"Let go the halliards," shouted the mate. "We shall be across the draw, and all go to Davy Jones' locker. Hear, d---- you, Slush-bucket?"
Still the old doctor pulled for dear life, and still rose the ghost-like sail, while the affrighted cook and all hands ran aft, looking as pale as death. Still the sail went up, up, and the captain and mate began to be astonished, when by this time--less time than it requires to tell it--the old doctor had
All ran forward to help the corpulent old doctor on deck, and by means of a man at each arm, and a boat-hook fast into the doctor's unmentionables, he was hauled safely on board, a wetter and a wiser man.
If you want to get kicked out of his office, just say in his hearing, "_Let go them 'ere halliards_," and it is done.
"O, mermaids, is it cold and wet Adown beneath the sea?
It seems to me that rather chill Must Davy's locker be."
MEDICAL t.i.tBITS.
_More Mustard than Meat._--A poor, emaciated Irishman having called in a physician as a forlorn hope, the latter spread a large mustard plaster and applied it to the poor fellow's lean chest.
"Ah, docthor," said Pat, looking down upon the huge plaster with tearful eyes, "it sames to me it's a dale of mustard for so little mate."
"_Don't want to be an Angel._"--"I want to be an angel," which has been so long shouted by _millions_ of darling little Sunday school children, who hadn't the remotest idea for what they had been wis.h.i.+ng (?), and whose parents would not voluntarily consent to the premature transformation, if the children did, has received a check in the following:--
A little sprite, who had been so very sick that her life was despaired of, was told one morning by the doctor that she would now get well.
"O, I'm so glad, doctor!" she replied; "for I don't want to die and go to heaben, and be an angel, and wear fedders, like a hen."
TOOTH DRAWING.
A sn.o.bbish-appearing individual accosted a countryman in homespun with the following interrogation:--
"I say, ah, my fraand, are you sufficiently conversant with the topography of _this_ neighborhood to direct me to the nearest disciple of aesculapius, eh?"
"What?" exclaimed the astonished rustic.
"Can you familiarize me with the most direct course to a physician?"
"Hey?"
"Can you tell me where a doctor lives?"
"O, a doctor's house. Why didn't you say so before?"
The next is after the same sort.
A sailor chap entered a dentist's office to have a tooth extracted.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "LOWER TIER, LARBOARD SIDE."]
_Doctor (with great professional dignity, speaking very slowly)._ "Well, mariner, what tooth do you require extracted? Is it an incisor, bicuspid, or a molar?"
_Jack (brusque and loud)._ "It's here in the lower tier, larboard side.
Bear a hand, lively, you dumb'd swab, for it's nippin' my jaw like a lobster."
_The most astonished boy_ I ever beheld was a little country lad who came to have a tooth drawn. "He thought it must be fun," his mother said; "but he never had one drawn, and knows nothing of it."
"O!" with a great, round mouth, was all he had time to say, but the expression of astonishment depicted on that striking countenance, glaring eyes, and by the expressive, spasmodic "O!" I never can forget or describe; and he caught his hat and ran home, a distance of two miles, without stopping, while his mother followed in the carriage by which they came. The boy's idea was summed up as follows:--
"The doctor hitched tight onto the tooth with his pinchers, then he pulled his first best, and just before it killed me, the tooth came out, and so I run home."
"_Taking it out in trade_" is all very well when the arrangement is mutual; but there are occasions when the advantages are imperceptible, at least to one party, as thus:--
"What's the matter, Jerry?" asked old Mr. ----, as Jeremiah was jogging by, growling most furiously.
"Matter 'nough," replied old Jerry. "There I've been luggin' water all the morning for the doctor's wife to wash with, and what do you s'pose she give me for it?"
"About ninepence."
"Ninepence? No! She told me the doctor would pull a tooth for me some time, when he got leisure."
Apothecaries sometimes "come down" from the dignity of the professional man, and crack a joke. For instance,--