One of their majesties would have insisted on the petals, and the other been equally imperative regarding the stamina: they'd have pushed their claims with all the weight of their influence, and there would have been soon little vestige of a nosegay between them. [Illustration: 237] But to come back, for all this is digression. The subdivision of labour, with all its advantages, has its reverse to the medal. You are ill, for instance. You have been dining with the Lord Mayor, and hip-hipping to the health of her Majesty's ministers; or drinking, mayhap, nine times nine to the independence of Poland, or civil and religious liberty all over the globe--or any other fiction of large dinners. You go home, with your head aching from bad wine, bad speeches, and bad music; your wife sees you look excessively flushed; your eyes have got an odd kind of expression, far too much of the white being visible; a half shut-up look, like a pastry-cook's shop on Sunday; there are evident signs, from blackness of the lips, that in your English ardour for the navy you have made a “port-hole” of your mouth; in fact, you have a species of semi-apoplectic threatening, that bodes ill for the insurance company. A doctor is sent for--he lives near, and comes at once--with a glance he recognises your state, and suggests the immediate remedy--the lancet. “Fetch a basin,” says somebody, with more presence of mind than the rest. “Not so fast,” quoth the medico. “I am a pure physician--I don't bleed: that's the surgeon's affair. I should be delighted to save the gentleman's life--but we have a bye-law against it in the college. Nothing could give me more pleasure than to cure you, if it was n't for the charter. What a pity it is! I 'm sure I wish, with all my heart, the cook would take courage to open a vein, or even give you a bloody nose with the cleaver.” Do you think I exaggerate here? Try the experiment--I only ask that. Sending for the surgeon does not solve the difficulty; he may be a man who cuts corns and cataracts--who only operates for strabismus, or makes new noses for Peninsular heroes. In fact, if you do n't hit the right number--and it's a large lottery--you may go out of the world without even the benefit of physic. This great system, however, does not end with human life. The coroners--resolved not to be behind their age--have made a great movement, and shown themselves men worthy of the enlightened era they live in. Read this:--