As for Mr. Nosnibor, he had received his eleventh flogging on the day of my arrival.  I saw him later on the same afternoon, and he was still twinged; but there had been no escape from following out the straightener’s prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws of Erewhon are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that his orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a hospital (as the poor are), and would have been much worse off.  Such at least is the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it.

On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr. Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to watch the completion of the cure.  I was struck with the delicacy with which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness about my host’s eyes which argued a bilious habit of body.  To have taken notice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette.  I was told, however, that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to glance at the possibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it important in order to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets are generally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon the matter as well as he can.  Sensible men have been known to say that the straightener should in strict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely to bear upon the case; but people are naturally shy of doing this, for they do not like lowering themselves in the opinion of the straightener, and his ignorance of medical science is supreme.  I heard of one lady, indeed, who had the hardihood to confess that a furious outbreak of ill-humour and extravagant fancies for which she was seeking advice was possibly the result of indisposition.  “You should resist that,” said the straightener, in a kind, but grave voice; “we can do nothing for the bodies of our patients; such matters are beyond our province, and I desire that I may hear no further particulars.”  The lady burst into tears, and promised faithfully that she would never be unwell again.

But to return to Mr. Nosnibor.  As the afternoon wore on many carriages drove up with callers to inquire how he had stood his flogging.  It had been very severe, but the kind inquiries upon every side gave him great pleasure, and he assured me that he felt almost tempted to do wrong again by the solicitude with which his friends had treated him during his recovery:  in this I need hardly say that he was not serious.