Christie Johnstone | Page 6

matter with me."
"I beg your lordship's pardon, your lordship is very ill, and Dr.
Aberford sent for."
"You may go, Saunders."

"Yes, my lord. I couldn't help it; I've outstepped my duty, my lord, but I
could not stand quiet and see your lordship dying by inches." Here Mr.
S. put a cambric handkerchief artistically to his eyes, and glided out,
having disarmed censure.
Lord Ipsden fell into a reverie.
"Is my mind or my body disordered? Dr. Aberford!--absurd!--Saunders
is getting too pragmatical. The doctor shall prescribe for him instead of
me; by Jove, that would serve him right." And my lord faintly chuckled.
"No! this is what I am ill of"--and he read the fatal note again. "I do
nothing!--cruel, unjust," sighed he. "I could have done, would have
done, anything to please her. Do nothing! nobody does anything
now--things don't come in your way to be done as they used centuries
ago, or we should do them just the same; it is their fault, not ours,"
argued his lordship, somewhat confusedly; then, leaning his brow upon
the sofa, he wished to die. For, at that dark moment life seemed to this
fortunate man an aching void; a weary, stale, flat, unprofitable tale; a
faded flower; a ball-room after daylight has crept in, and music, motion
and beauty are fled away.
"Dr. Aberford, my lord."
This announcement, made by Mr. Saunders, checked his lordship's
reverie.
"Insults everybody, does he not, Saunders?"
"Yes, my lord," said Saunders, monotonously.
"Perhaps he will me; that might amuse me," said the other.
A moment later the doctor bowled into the apartment, tugging at his
gloves, as he ran.
The contrast between him and our poor rich friend is almost beyond
human language.

Here lay on a sofa Ipsden, one of the most distinguished young
gentlemen in Europe; a creature incapable, by nature, of a rugged tone
or a coarse gesture; a being without the slightest apparent pretension,
but refined beyond the wildest dream of dandies. To him, enter
Aberford, perspiring and shouting. He was one of those globules of
human quicksilver one sees now and then for two seconds; they are, in
fact, two globules; their head is one, invariably bald, round, and
glittering; the body is another in activity and shape, _totus teres atque
rotundus;_ and in fifty years they live five centuries. _Horum Rex
Aberford_--of these our doctor was the chief. He had hardly torn off
one glove, and rolled as far as the third flower from the door on his
lordship's carpet, before he shouted:
"This is my patient, lolloping in pursuit of health. Your hand," added he.
For he was at the sofa long before his lordship could glide off it.
"Tongue. Pulse is good. Breathe in my face."
"Breathe in your face, sir! how can I do that?" (with an air of mild
doubt.)
"By first inhaling, and then exhaling in the direction required, or how
can I make acquaintance with your bowels?"
"My bowels?"
"The abdomen, and the greater and lesser intestines. Well, never mind,
I can get at them another way; give your heart a slap, so. That's your
liver. And that's your diaphragm."
His lordship having found the required spot (some people that I know
could not) and slapped it, the Aberford made a circular spring and
listened eagerly at his shoulder-blade; the result of this scientific
pantomime seemed to be satisfactory, for he exclaimed, not to say
bawled:
"Halo! here is a viscount as sound as a roach! Now, young gentleman,"
added he, "your organs are superb, yet you are really out of sorts; it

follows you have the maladies of idle minds, love, perhaps, among the
rest; you blush, a diagnostic of that disorder; make your mind easy,
cutaneous disorders, such as love, etc., shall never kill a patient of mine
with a stomach like yours. So, now to cure you!" And away went the
spherical doctor, with his hands behind him, not up and down the room,
but slanting and tacking, like a knight on a chess-board. He had not
made many steps before, turning his upper globule, without affecting
his lower, he hurled back, in a cold business-like tone, the following
interrogatory:
"What are your vices?"
"Saunders," inquired the patient, "which are my vices?"
"M'lord, lordship hasn't any vices," replied Saunders, with dull,
matter-of-fact solemnity.
"Lady Barbara makes the same complaint," thought Lord Ipsden.
"It seems I have not any vices, Dr. Aberford," said he, demurely.
"That is bad; nothing to get hold of. What interests you, then?"
"I don't remember."
"What amuses you?"
"I forget."
"What! no winning horse to gallop away your rents?"
"No, sir!"
"No opera girl to run her foot and ankle through your purse?"
"No, sir! and I think their ankles are not what they were."
"Stuff! just