“I will take this letter down to Beattie, Lucy, and hear what he says of it,” said the old man, and left the room. “Read this, Beattie, and tell me what you say to it,” said the Chief Baron, as he handed the doctor Sir Brook's letter; “I'll tell you of the writer when you have read it.” Beattie read the note in silence, and as he laid it on the table said, “I know the man, and his strange old-fashioned writing would have recalled him without his name.” “And what do you know of him, sir?” asked the Judge, sternly. “I can tell you the story in three words: He came to consult me one morning, about six or eight months ago. It was about an insurance on his life,--a very small sum he wanted to raise, to go out to this very place he writes from. He got to talk about the project, and I don't exactly know how it came about,--I forget the details now,--but it ended by my lending him the money myself.” “What, sir! do you combine usury with physic?” “On that occasion I appear to have done so,” said Beattie, laughing. “And you advanced a sum of money to a man whom you saw for the first time, simply on his showing that his life was too insecure to guarantee repayment?” “That puts the matter a little too nakedly.” “It puts it truthfully, sir, I apprehend.” “If you mean that the man impressed me so favorably that I was disposed to do him a small service, you are right.” “You and I, Beattie, are too old for this impulsive generosity,--too old by thirty years! After forty philanthropy should take a chronic form, and never have paroxysms. I think I am correct in my medical language.” “Your medicine pleases me more than your morality,” said Beattie, laughing; “but to come back to this Sir Brook, I wish you had seen him.” “Sir, I have seen him, and I have heard of him, and if not at liberty to say what I have heard of him, it is quite enough to state that _my_ information cannot corroborate _your_ opinion.” “Well, my Lord, the possibility of what I might hear will not shake the stability of what I have seen. Remember that we doctors imagine we read human nature by stronger spectacles than the laity generally.” “You imagine it, I am aware, sir; but I have met with no such instances of acuteness amongst your co-professionals as would sustain the claim; but why are we wandering from the record? I gave you that letter to read that you might tell me, is this boy's case a dangerous one?” “It is a very grave case, no doubt; this is the malaria fever of Sardinia,--bad enough with the natives, but worse with strangers. He should be removed to better air at once if he could bear removal.” “So is it ever with your art,” said the Judge, in a loud declamatory voice. “You know nothing in your difficulties but a piteous entreaty to the unknown resources of nature to assist you. No, sir; I will not hear your defence; there is no issue before the Court. What sort of practitioners have they in this island?” “Rude enough, I can believe.”