"Fifthly, fail not to oblige neighbouring ale-houses, to recommend you to inquirers; and hold correspondence with all the nurses and midwives near you, to applaud your skill at gossippings." The directions go on to advise loquacity and impudence, qualities which quacks of all times and kinds have found most useful. But in cases where the practitioner has an impediment in his speech, or cannot by training render himself glib of utterance, he is advised to persevere in a habit of mysterious silence, rendered impressive by grave nods of the head. When Dr. Pulsefeel was tired of London, or felt a want of country air, he concentrated his powers on the pleasant occupation of fleecing rustic simplicity. For his journeys into the provinces he provided himself with a stout and fast-trotting hack--stout, that it might bear without fatigue weighty parcels of medicinal composition; and fleet of foot, so that if an ungrateful rabble should commit the indecorum of stoning their benefactor as an impostor (a mishap that would occasionally occur), escape might be effected from the infatuated and excited populace. In his circuit the doctor took in all the fairs, markets, wakes, and public festivals; not, however, disdaining to stop an entire week, or even month, at an assize town, where he found the sick anxious to benefit by his wisdom. His plan of making acquaintance with a new place was to ride boldly into the thickest crowd of a fair or market, with as much speed as he could make without imperilling the lives of by-standers; and then, when he had checked his steed, inform all who listened that he had come straight from the Duke of Bohemia, or the most Serene Emperor of Wallachia, out of a desire to do good to his fellow-creatures. He was born in that very town,--yes, that very town in which he then was speaking, and had left it when an orphan child of eight years of age, to seek his fortune in the world. He had found his way to London, and been crimped on board a vessel bound for Morocco, and so had been carried off to foreign parts. His adventures had been wonderful. He had visited the Sultan and the Great Mogul. There was not a part of the Indies with which he was not familiar. If any one doubted him, let his face be regarded, and his bronze complexion bear witness of the scorching suns he had endured. He had cured hundreds--ay, thousands--of emperors, kings, queens, princes, margravines, grand duchesses, and generalissimos, of their diseases. He had a powder which would stay the palsy, jaundice, hot fever, and cramps. It was expensive; but that he couldn't help, for it was made of pearls, and the dried leaves of violets brought from the very middle of Tartary; still he could sell a packet of the medicine for a crown--a sum which would just pay him back his outlaid money, and leave him no profit. But he didn't want to make money of them. He was their fellow-townsman; and in order to find them out and cure them he had refused offers of