A curious specimen of medical treatment came to light when Philip, Duke of Burgundy, lay sick at Bruges. He was a doughty warrior this Earl of Holland, as he was sometimes called, and wealthy withal, so the best advice was secured. “Now, paupers got sick and got well as Nature pleased, but woe betided the rich,” says the novelist, “in an age when for one Mr. Malady killed, three fell by Dr. Remedy. “The duke’s complaint, nameless then, is now called diphtheria. He was old and weak, so Dr. Remedy bled him. “The duke turned cold—wonderful! “Then Dr. Remedy had recourse to the arcana of science. “Ho! This is grave. Flay me an ape incontinent, to clap him to the duke’s breast! Officers of state ran septemvious, seeking an ape to counteract the blood-thirsty tomfoolery of the human species. “But an ape could not be found. “Then Dr. Remedy grew impatient, and bade flay a dog. “A dog is next best to an ape; only it must be a dog all of one colour. “So they flayed a liver-coloured dog and clapped it, yet palpitating, to their sovereign’s breast; and he died.” Thus ended Philip the Good. CHAPTER X. DICKENS. The apothecary of romance is almost invariably pale and lean, with head nearly destitute of hirsute covering, and a man of retiring habits and sad demeanour. This is perhaps because he gets little chance to make the wherewithal to make him fat, and has few opportunities to seek enjoyment and recreation. Dickens’ chemist, whom he describes in his pathetic little story _The Haunted Man_, is no exception to this rule. “Who could have seen his hollow cheek, his sunken, brilliant eye; his black-attired figure, indefinably grim, although well knit and well proportioned; his grizzled hair hanging like tangled seaweed about his face,—as if he had been through his whole life a lonely mark for the chafing and beating of the great deep of humanity—but might have said he looked like a haunted man? “Who could have observed his manner—taciturn, thoughtful, gloomy, shadowed by habitual reserve, retiring always and jocund never, with a distraught air of reverting to a bygone place and time, or of listening to some old echoes in his mind—but might have said it was the manner of a haunted man? “Who could have heard his voice—slow-speaking, deep and grave, with a natural fulness and melody in it which he seemed to set himself against and stop—but might have said it was the voice of a haunted man?