Nearly all great men have their oddities or peculiarities. I might give many little interesting sketches of some physicians' oddities right among us, but for too great personality. I may, however, work in a few. The eccentricities of some doctors lie in their dress. Of this, I shall speak under the head of "Dress and Address." Others lie in personal acts, in their walk, manners, and conversation. I know of one physician who delights in the worst looking old horse he can obtain. The doctor himself has but one eye. His old donkey-like beast corresponded. Report said that he cut out the left eye of the horse to gain that desired end, which, however, is discredited. The beast was also lame, which defect the doctor would never admit. "What _you_ ignorantly term 'limping' is only an expression of good breeding--which I cannot attach to all whom I meet on the road. It's bowing,--merely bowing. You never see him do it unless somebody is in sight. Gid-dap!" And so delivering himself, the old doctor would drive on, chuckling softly to himself. When his old horse died, he was presented with a fine young beast, which he declined to accept, but scoured the country till he found a high-boned, rib-bared, foundered, and half-blind old roadster. A NEW DISH. Dr. James Wood was an oddity. He was a bachelor, between thirty and forty, large and attractive. He was remarkably neat in dress and person, but delighted in "an old rip of a horse." Once he was on a tour through New Brunswick, and, in company with a friend, drove up to a tavern at evening, and called for the landlord. "He ain't t' home, but I'm the horse-slayer," replied a voice, followed by the person of a tall, lean Yankee, who issued from the smoke of the bar-room, and approached our friends, still sitting in the open buggy. "Here, put up my horse; take good care of him, and feed him well." "Hoss?" said the impudent fellow. "O, yes, I see him now; he's inside that ere frame, I s'pose. Climb down, gentlemen, and go inter the house. Landlord and the Santipede (Xantippe?) has gone to St. Johns; but I guess Dolly in the kitchin, and me in the bar-room, can eat and drink yer, though you're two putty big fellows, well's myself." So saying, the gentlemen having alighted, he drove the animal to the stable. [Illustration: A "HORSE-SLAYER" INDULGING HIS OPINION.] At supper, the doctor and his friend and two ladies were the only guests. Just what part the "horse-slayer" had had in its preparation was not obvious, since he had, after caring for the horse, only sat with a pipe in his mouth and his heels elevated on the bar-room stove, or following to the sitting-room, and continually plied the doctor with questions. However, the supper was ample, thanks to "Dolly." "Is there anything more wanted?" inquired the table girl,--a round-faced, round-headed country specimen in neat calico. "Yes," replied the doctor, "we would like some napkins, seeing there are none on the table."