Hastings is so essentially a resort of invalids, that the faculty is to be found there in every variety. Allopathy, seated far back in its brougham, looks sedately and smugly at the saunterers on the promenade; while Homoeopathy, thinking to assume a virtue even if it have it not, and to wear the livery of medicine though scorned by regular practitioners, whirls by, black-clothed and white-chokered, in its open four-wheeler. Nor are there wanting the followers of even less generally received science. On that charming slope, midway between Hastings and St. Leonards, where a scrap of green struggles to put in an arid appearance amidst the vast masses of rock and sand, Herr Douss, the favourite pupil of Priessnitz (what a large-hearted fellow he must have been, to judge by the number of his favourite pupils!), opened a water-cure establishment, to which, for financial reasons, he has recently added the attractions of a Turkish bath, and invariably has a houseful of damp hypochondriacs. And in the immediate neighbourhood is there not the sanatorium of the celebrated Mr. Crux? a gentleman who has discovered the secret that no mortal ailment can withstand being rubbed in a peculiar manner, and who shampoos you, and rubs you, and pulls your joints, and pommels you all over until you become a miracle of youth and freshness, to which the renovated Æson could not be compared. It is not for an instant to be supposed that any of this unlicensed band were allowed to work their will on the person of Lord Sandilands. The old gentleman was far too careful of his health to quit the immediate precincts of his private physician without being relegated to someone to whom that physician had knowledge, and in whom he had trust. Sir Charles Dumfunk, of Harley-street, habitually attended Lord Sandilands, and was liked by his lordship as a friend as well as esteemed as a physician. A very courtly old gentleman was Sir Charles, one who for years had been honorary physician to the Grand Scandinavian Opera, and had written more medical certificates for sulky singers and dancers than any other member of his craft. In his capacity of fashionable physician--the lungs and throat were supposed to be his speciality--Sir Charles Dumfunk had the power of bidding many of his patients to quit their usual pursuits, and devote themselves to the restoration of their health in a softer climate. The ultra-fashionables were generally sent to Nice, Cannes, or Mentone; "it little matters," the old gentleman used to remark; "they will carry Belgrave-square and its manners and customs with them wherever they go." _Nouveaux riches_ were despatched to Madeira, energetic patients to Algiers, while mild cases were permitted to pass their winter at Hastings. At each one of these places the leading physician was Sir Charles Dumfunk's friend. Little Dr. Bede, of St. Leonards, swore by the great London Galen, who invariably sent him a score of