DOCTOR BONOMI Which always give way at the seat and the knee; Which take buttons and sewing! Alas! but four boys would be ruin to me. They would always be yelping for something to eat; Befitting their station! I have children already, enough and to spare. For four hungry, howling, nude creatures beside. Here's a humble reminder, fifteen louis-d'or: And, in raising the dead, pray, MY BABIES pass o'er." Now was heard in the street of wheels a loud rumble. 61 "Sacré bleu! mille diables! Are you going to arouse from their graves all the rabble? He stopped, out of breath, but still waggled his head, 44 Such an infringement of order, indeed! Revolution and anarchy certain to breed. Do you think I am going To tolerate it for one moment? Odds bobbin! Into prison; and mark you, if once you were in it, To the money you 're welcome-accept, and be gone; Up your traps; it's a beautiful morning For shifting your quarters. No slighting my warning! Why," added his worship, with iciest stare, "I'm 'whelmed with amazement to think you should dare To dream of unseating ME-me, sir, the Mayor! Then back With your bottles and drugs to the wilds of Dahomy, There practice at ease, on fresh corpse or old mummy, With nothing to fear, But only not here, So! out of the town with you, Doctor Bonomi!" -S. BARING-Gould. B The Quack Doctor OUT what a thoughtless animal is man! -Wentworth DILLON, Earl of Roscommon. THE TRANSFERRED MALADY 63 The Transferred Malady (IN AN OCULIST's office.) H OW sweet the girl! I saw her pass The waiting group, with dumb surprise; With heaven's soft azure in her eyes. I saw her take the patient's chair (Venus and Science matched amain), He sought the source of her distress, 44 Neuritis of mild type it is," He said (whatever that may be); Here is a wash I use for this, But come each day and visit me." I knew the doctor's ready skill; Daily, as she was bid, she came ; At length he struggled to disguise; For gazing in those orbs of blue So close transferred an aching smart. No "wash" he ever gave or knew For ailing eyes could help his heart. The girl was cured, the patient lost, About my Cupid's sharp caprice? Should not have been for years dismissed. To keep them always face to face, I'd die—a baffled oculist. -JOEL BENTON. With the Scapel H ERE'S our subject," tall and strong, Where the blood once coursed along, Ready now to be dissected. Some one never claimed, it seems, Friendless amid London's Babel: Did he ever in his dreams See this table? Here's a hand that once held fast Or for friendship, or for striking. Nothing colder here could lie, Yet on some one's palm there lingers Sense of its warm touch, while I Strip the fingers. WITH THE SCAPEL How the dead eyes strangely stare, When I lift the lids above them! Yet some woman lives, I swear, Who too well had learnt to love them; Some one since their final sleep Holds their smiles in recollection, While I put them by to keep Then the heart. I take it out, Handling it with no compunction; Once it wildly pulsed, no doubt, Well performed each wondrous function. Sped the life-blood in its race In miraculous gyration, Felt, responsive to one face, Where was life then? Was it hid In each curious convolution, Packed beneath the cranium lid With such ordered distribution? Can we touch one spot and say, Here all thought and feeling entered, Here 'twas but the other day— Life was centered? No, that puzzle still remains, One unsolved, supreme attraction; Here are muscles, nerves and veins Where was that which gave them action? Though the scapel's edge be keen, Comes no answer from the tissues, Telling us where life has been Whence it issues. We can bid the heart be still, Stop the life-blood's circulation; Paralyze the sovereign will, Through the centres of sensation. 65 |