“Go to the United Bank of Australia forthwith, and stop the notes whose numbers—­all, alas! which I can recollect—­are enclosed.  Next, lend me five pounds.  Next, send me down, as quick as possible, five pounds’ worth of decent drugs, as per list; and—­if you can borrow me one—­a tolerable microscope, and a few natural history books, to astound the yokels here with:  for I was shipwrecked here last night, after all at a dirty little west-country port, and what’s worse, robbed of all I had made at the diggings, and start fair, once more, to run against cruel Dame Fortune, as Colston did against the Indians, without a shirt to my back.  Don’t be a hospitable fellow, and ask me to come up and camp with you.  Mumpsimus’s and all old faces would be a great temptation:  but here I must stick till I hear of my money, and physic the natives for my daily bread.”

To his father he wrote thus, not having the heart to tell the truth:—­

“To EDWARD THURNALL, Esq., M.D., Whitbury.

“My Dearest Old Father—­I hope to see you again in a few weeks, as soon as I have settled a little business here, where I have found a capital opening for a medical man.  Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write and tell me how you are—­and for sending you every penny I can spare, trust me.  I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, like a cat.  I long to come to you; but I mustn’t yet.  It is near three years since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the only thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary—­big Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to some ’bloated aristocrat.’  Best remembrances to old Mark Armsworth.

“Your affectionate son,

“T.T.”

“Mr. Heale,” said Tom next, “are we Whigs or Tories here?”

“Why—­ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most hereabouts, and my Lord Minchampstead, who has bought Carcarrow moors above,—­very old Whig connections, both of them; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he, again, thorough-going Tory—­very good patient he was once, and may be again—­ha! ha!  Gay young man, sir—­careless of his health; so you see as a medical man, sir—­”

“Which is the liberal paper?  This one?  Very good.”  And Tom wrote off to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which bore fruit ere the week’s end, in the shape of five columns, headed thus:—­

WRECK OF THE “HESPERUS.”

“The following detailed account of this lamentable catastrophe has been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the only survivor, Thomas Thurnall, Esquire, F.R.C.S., &c. &c. &c., late surgeon on board the ill-fated vessel.”  Which five columns not only put a couple of guineas into Tom’s pocket, but, as he intended they should, brought him before the public as an interesting personage, and served as a very good advertisement to the practice which Tom had already established in fancy.