Montaigne says it was an Egyptian law that the physician, for the first three days, should take charge of a patient at the patient's peril, but afterwards at his own. He mentions that, in his time, physicians gave their pills in odd numbers, appointed remarkable days in the year for taking medicine, gathered their simples at certain hours, assumed austere and even severe looks, and prescribed, among their choice drugs, the left foot of a tortoise, the liver of a mole, and blood drawn from under the wing of a white pigeon. _Not Divine until Smeared with Red Paint._ The inhabitants of the village of Balonda, in Africa, manufacture their idols by rudely carving a head upon a crooked stick. There is nothing divine about the idol, however, until it is dotted over with a mixture of medicine and red ochre.—_Livingstone._ _Gipsy Reticence._ A gipsy will never give a history of himself nor of his race. "My father is a crow, and my mother a magpie," is frequently the only answer obtained. _Carrying Coals to Newcastle._ The old North of England phrase, "To carry coals to Newcastle," finds its parallel in the Persian taunt of "carrying pepper to Hindostan," and in the Hebrew, "To carry oil to the City of Olives." _Mammoth Pawnbroker's Shop._ The _Monte de piété_, in Paris, established by royal command in 1717, often has in its possession forty casks filled with gold watches that have been pledged. _Half-Penny and Farthing._ In 1060, when William the Conqueror began to reign, the penny was cast with a deep cross, so that it might be broken in half, as a half-penny, or in quarters, for _four_-things or _far_things, as we now call them. _An Egg Mistaken for a Pearl._ Linnæus announced to the king and council, in 1761, that he had discovered an art by which mussels might be made to produce pearls. In the year 1763 it was said, in the German newspapers that Linnæus was ennobled on account of his discovery, and that he bore a pearl in his coat-of-arms. Both statements were false. His patent of nobility makes no mention of the pearl discovery, and what in his arms has been taken for a pearl is an egg, which is meant to represent all nature, after the manner of the ancient Egyptians. _Spacious Halls._ The old English halls were sometimes so spacious as to admit of a knight riding up to the high table, as the champion of England was accustomed to do at the coronation. Chaucer says— "In at the hall door all suddenly There came a knight upon a steed, And up he rideth to the high board." _Medallions only for the Royal._