"But this appears to me to be a surgical case," said the tall man; "and as the head, as all will allow, is a more honourable part of the body than the paunch, I claim to be the first on the field; and, moreover, to have seen the patient before you could possibly have done so, Doctor Murphy. Sir," he continued, stalking past his brother practitioner, and making a bow with a battered hat to the major, "I come, I presume, on your summons, to attend to the injured boy; and such skill as I possess--and I flatter myself it's considerable--is at your service. May I ask what is the matter with him?" "Here's a practitioner who doesn't know what his patient is suffering from by a glance of the eye!" cried the doctor of medicine. "Give place, Mr O'Shea, to a man of superior knowledge to yourself," exclaimed Doctor Murphy. "It's easy enough to see with half a glance that the boy has broken his neck, and by this time, unless he possesses a couple of spines,--and I never knew a man have more than one, though,--he must be dead as a door nail!" "Dead!" cried Mr O'Shea; "the doctor says his patient's dead without feeling a pulse or lifting an eyelid." "You, at all events, ought to know a corpse from a live man," cried the fat medico, growing irate, "when it's whispered that you have made as many dead bodies in the town itself as would serve for a couple of battles and a few scrimmages to boot." "And you, Doctor Murphy, have poisoned one-half of your patients, and the others only survive because they throw the physic you send them to the dogs." "Come, gentlemen," exclaimed the major, "while you are squabbling, any spark of life the poor boy may contain will be ebbing away. As I am not acquainted with the skill you respectively possess, I beg that you, Doctor Murphy, as holding the higher grade in your profession, will examine the boy, and express your opinion whether he is dead or alive, and state, if there's life in him, which you consider the best way to bring him round, and set him on his feet again." Mr O'Shea, on hearing this, stepped back a few paces, and, folding his arms, looked with supreme contempt on the little doctor, who, stooping down over Larry with watch in hand, at which he mechanically gazed with a serious countenance, felt his pulse. "His hand is cold and clammy, and there's not a single thump in his arteries," he said with solemn gravity; and letting fall Larry's hand he proceeded to examine his neck. "The vertebra broken, cracked, dislocated," he continued, in the same solemn tone. "D'ye see this black mark down his throat? it's amply sufficient to account for death. I hereby certify that this is a corpse before me, and authorise that he may be sent home to his friends for Christian burial." "Och ahone! och ahone!" I cried out, throwing myself by the side of the mattress. "Is Larry really dead? Oh, doctors dear, can't both of you put your heads together and try to bring him to life again?"