"Well," said the narrator, putting down his empty glass and filling it again with Madeira--"I was shown into the examination-room. Large table, and half-a-dozen old gentlemen at it. 'Big-wigs, no doubt,' thought I; 'and sure as my name is Symonds, they'll pluck me like a pigeon.' "'Well, sir, what do you know about the science of your profession?' asked the stout man in the chair. "'More than he does of the practice, I'll be bound,' tittered a little wasp of a dandy--a West End ladies' doctor. "I trembled in my shoes. "'Well, sir,' continued the stout man, 'what would you do if a man was brought to you during action with his arms and legs shot off? Now, sir, don't keep the Board waiting! What would you do? Make haste!' "'By Jove, sir!' I answered--a thought just striking me--'I should pitch him overboard, and go on to some one else I could be of more service to.' "By -- --! every one present burst out laughing; and they passed me directly, sir--passed me directly!" The examiners doubtless felt that a young man who could manifest such presence of mind on such an occasion, and so well reply to a terrorizing question, might be trusted to act wisely on other emergencies. Many stories of a similar kind are very old acquaintances of most of our readers. "What"--an examiner of the same Board is reported to have said to a candidate--"would you have recourse to if, after having ineffectually tried all the ordinary diaphoretics, you wanted to throw your patient, in as short a time as possible, into a profuse perspiration?" "I should send him here, sir, to be examined," was the reply. Not less happy was the audacity of the medical student to Abernethy. "What would you do," bluntly inquired the surgeon, "if a man was brought to you with a broken leg?" "Set it, sir," was the reply. "Good--very good--you're a very pleasant, witty young man; and doubtless you can tell me what muscles of my body I should set in motion if I kicked you, as you deserve to be kicked, for your impertinence." "You would set in motion," responded the youth, with perfect coolness, "the flexors and extensors of my right arm; for I should immediately knock you down."