CAPTAIN, (looking at his watch.)—“That reminds me, (swallowing a globule.) A great relief these little pills—after the physic I’ve taken to please that malignant man. He always tried his doctor’s stuff upon me. But there’s another world, and a juster!” With that pious conclusion, the Captain again began to weep. “Touched,” muttered the Squire, with his forefinger on his forehead. “You seem to have a good tidy sort of nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I hope she’s pleasant, and lively, and don’t let you take on so.” “Hist!—don’t talk of her. All mercenary; every bit of her fawning! Would you believe it? I give her ten shillings a-week, besides all that goes down of my pats of butter and rolls, and I overheard the jade saying to the laundress that ‘I could not last long; and she’d—EXPECTATIONS!’ Ah, Mr Dale, when one thinks of the sinfulness there is in this life! But I’ll not think of it. No—I’ll not. Let us change the subject. You were asking my doctor’s name? It is—” Here the woman ‘with expectations’ threw open the door, and suddenly announced—“DR MORGAN.” CHAPTER IV. The Parson started, and so did Leonard. The Homœopathist did not at first notice either. With an unobservant bow to the visitors, he went straight to the patient, and asked, “How go the symptoms?” Therewith the Captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy reciting the catalogue of the ships in Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single nook or corner in his anatomical organisation, so far as the Captain was acquainted with that structure, but what some symptom or other was dragged therefrom, and exposed to day. The Squire listened with horror to the morbific inventory—muttering at each dread interval, “Bless me! Lord bless me! What, more still! Death would be a very happy release!” Meanwhile the Doctor endured the recital with exemplary patience, noting down in the leaves of his pocket-book what appeared to him the salient points in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and then, drawing forth a minute paper, said— “Capital—nothing can be better. This must be dissolved in eight table-spoonfuls of water; one spoonful every two hours.” “Table-spoonful?” “Table-spoonful.” “‘Nothing can be better,’ did you say, sir?” repeated the Squire, who, in his astonishment at that assertion applied to the Captain’s description of his sufferings, had hitherto hung fire—“‘nothing can be better?’” “For the diagnosis, sir!” replied Dr Morgan. “For the dogs’ noses, very possibly,” quoth the Squire; “but for the inside of Cousin Higginbotham, I should think nothing could be worse.”