Heigh-ho! I suppose the Doctor (whom they have sent for) will come before long; some great, pompous Æsculapius, with an owl phiz, a gold-headed cane, an oracular voice, and callous heart and hands; who will first manipulate my wrist, and then take the latitude and longitude of my tongue; then, he will punch me in my ribs, and torment me with more questions than there are in the Assembly’s Catechism; then, he’ll bother me for writing materials, to scratch off a hieroglyphic humbug prescription, ordering five times as much medicine as I need; then, I shall have to pay for it; then, ten to one, the apothecary’s boy will put up poison, by mistake! Cæsar! how my head spins round; Hippodrome racing is nothing to it. Hist! there’s the Doctor. No! it is that little unregenerate cub, my landlady’s pet boy, with a bran new drum (as I’m a sinner), upon which he is beating a crucifying tattoo. If I only had a boot-jack to throw at him. No! that won’t do: his mother wouldn’t make my gruel. I’ll bribe him with a sixpence, to keep the peace. The little embryo Jew! he says _he won’t do it under a quarter_! Twitted by a little pinafore! _I_, Tom Haliday, six feet in my stockings! I shall go frantic. “Doctor is coming!” Well, let him come. I’m as savage as if I’d just dined off a cold missionary. I’ll pretend to be asleep, and let old Pill-box experiment. How gently he treads: how soft his hand is: how cool and delicious his touch! How tenderly he parts my hair over my throbbing temples! His magnetic touch thrills every drop of blood in my veins: it is marvellous how soothing it is. I feel as happy as a humming-bird in a lily cup, drowsy with honeydew. Now he’s moved away. I hear him writing a prescription. I’ll just take a peep and see what he looks like. Cæsar Aggripina! if it isn’t a _Female Physician_! dainty as a Peri--_and my beard three days old_! What a bust! (Wonder how my hair looks?) What a foot and ankle! What shoulders; what a little round waist. Fever? I’ve got _twenty_ fevers, and the heart-complaint besides. What the mischief sent that little witch here? She will either kill or cure me, pretty quick. Wonder if she has any more _masculine_ patients? Wonder if they are handsome? Wonder if she lays that little dimpled hand on _their_ foreheads, as she did on mine? Now she has done writing, I’ll shut my eyes and groan, and then, may be, she will _pet_ me some more; bless her little soul! She says, “poor fellow!” as she holds my wrist, “his pulse is too quick.” In the name of Cupid, what does she _expect_? She says, as she pats my forehead with her little plump fingers, “’Sh--’sh! Keep cool.” Lava and brimstone! does she take me for an iceberg? Oh, Cupid! of all your devices, this feminine doctoring for a bachelor, is the _ne plus ultra_ of witchcraft. If I don’t have a prolonged “run of fever,” my name isn’t Tom Haliday! She’s gone! and--I’m gone, too! A MOTHER’S INFLUENCE.