One evening, Ben had sent me to fill his tobacco-box at Mrs. St. Felix’s, and when I went in, I found the doctor in her shop.

“Well, Master Tom Saunders or Mr. Poor Jack,” said the widow, “what may your pleasure be?”

“Pigtail,” said I, putting down the penny.

“Is it for your father, Jack, for report tells me that he’s in want of it?”

“No,” replied I, “it’s for old Ben—­father’s a long way from this, I expect.”

“And do you intend to follow him, Jack?  It’s my opinion you’ll be the very revarse of a good sailor if you cruise bottom up as you did on your first voyage.”

“It’s not the pleasantest way of sailing, is it, Jack?” observed the doctor.

“Not in the winter-time,” replied I.

The widow measured the length of the pigtail, as milliners do tape, from the tip of the finger to the knuckle, and cut it off.

“And now will you oblige me with a cigar?” said the doctor.  “I think this is the sixth, is it not, Mrs. St. Felix? so here’s my shilling.”

“Really, doctor, if it were not that the wry faces I make at physic would spoil my beauty, I’m almost in honor bound to send for something to take out of your shop, just by the way of return for your patronage.”

“I trust you will never require it, Mrs. St. Felix.  I’ve no objection to your sending for anything you please, but don’t take physic.”

“Well, my girl Jane shall have a dose, I declare, she is getting so fat and lumpy.  Only don’t let it be laudanum, doctor, she’s so sleepy-headed already.  I told her this morning that she was looking pale, just by way of preparing her.”

“Mrs. St. Felix, you must excuse me, but you’ve no right to interfere with my practice.  I prescribe physic when I think it necessary, and Jane is perfectly well at present, and shall not have any.”

“And you’ve no right to interfere with my household, doctor.  If I choose, I’ll physic Jane, and the dog, and the cat, and the kitten, which I reckon to be the whole of my establishment, all four of them on the same day.  Tell me, doctor, how much ipecacuanha will make a kitten sick?”

“Mrs. St. Felix, I am not a veterinary surgeon, and therefore cannot answer.”

“Veterinary!  Well, I thought they only doctored horses.”

“I beg your pardon, their practice extends further, as I can prove to you.  I was once at the establishment of one in London, and I observed in a large room about a dozen little lap-dogs all tied up with strings.  The poor little unwieldy waddling things were sent to him because they were asthmatic, and I don’t know what all; and how do you think he cured them?”

“It’s for me to ask that question, doctor.”

“Well, then, he told me his secret.  He tied them all up, and gave them nothing to eat, only water to drink; and in three weeks they were returned in as beautiful condition, and as frisky as young kids.  Nothing but diet, Mrs. St. Felix.”