Japhet, in Search of a Father | Page 9

well with the
world in general. My forehead was smooth, and very white, and my
dark locks were combed back systematically, and with a regularity that
said, as plainly as hair could do, "The owner of this does everything by
prescription, measurement, and rule." With my long fingers I folded up
the little packets, with an air as thoughtful and imposing as that of a
minister who has just presented a protocol as interminable as
unintelligible: and the look of solemn sagacity with which I poured out
the contents of one vial into the other, would have well become the
king's physician, when he watched the "lord's anointed" in articulo
mortis.
As I followed up my saturnine avocation, I generally had an open book
on the counter beside me; not a marble-covered dirty volume, from the
Minerva press, or a half-bound, half-guinea's worth of fashionable trash,
but a good, honest, heavy-looking, wisdom-implying book, horribly
stuffed with epithet of drug; a book in which Latin words were
redundant, and here and there were to be observed the crabbed

characters of Greek. Altogether, with my book and my look, I cut such
a truly medical appearance, that even the most guarded would not have
hesitated to allow me the sole conduct of a whitlow, from inflammation
to suppuration, and from suppuration to cure, or have refused to have
confided to me the entire suppression of a gumboil. Such were my
personal qualifications at the time that I was raised to the important
office of dispenser of, I may say, life and death.
It will not surprise the reader when I tell him that I was much noticed
by those who came to consult, or talk with, Mr Cophagus. "A very fine
looking lad that, Mr Cophagus," an acquaintance would say. "Where
did you get him--who is his father?"
"Father!" Mr Cophagus would reply, when they had gained the back
parlour, but I could overhear him, "father, um--can't
tell--love--concealment--child born--foundling hospital--put out--and
so on."
This was constantly occurring, and the constant occurrence made me
often reflect upon my condition, which otherwise I might, from the
happy and even tenor of my life, have forgotten. When I retired to my
bed I would revolve in my mind all that I had gained from the
governors of the hospital relative to myself.--The paper found in the
basket had been given to me. I was born in wedlock--at least, so said
that paper. The sum left with me also proved that my parents could not,
at my birth, have been paupers. The very peculiar circumstances
attending my case, only made me more anxious to know my parentage.
I was now old enough to be aware of the value of birth, and I was also
just entering the age of romance, and many were the strange and absurd
reveries in which I indulged. At one time I would cherish the idea that I
was of a noble, if not princely birth, and frame reasons for concealment.
At others--but it is useless to repeat the absurdities and castle buildings
which were generated in my brain from mystery. My airy fabrics would
at last disappear, and leave me in all the misery of doubt and
abandoned hope. Mr Cophagus, when the question was sometimes put
to him, would say, "Good boy--very good boy--don't want a father."
But he was wrong, I did want a father; and every day the want became

more pressing, and I found myself continually repeating the question,
"_Who is my father?_"

Chapter IV
Very much puzzled with a new Patient, nevertheless take my degree at
fifteen as an M.D.; and what is still more acceptable, I pocket the fees.
The departure of Mr Brookes, of course, rendered me more able to
follow up with Timothy my little professional attempts to procure
pocket-money; but independent of these pillages by the aid of pills, and
making drafts upon our master's legitimate profits, by the assistance of
draughts from his shop, accident shortly enabled me to raise the ways
and means in a more rapid manner. But of this directly.
In the meantime I was fast gaining knowledge; every evening I read
surgical and medical books, put into my hands by Mr Cophagus, who
explained whenever I applied to him, and I soon obtained a very fair
smattering of my profession. He also taught me how to bleed, by
making me, in the first instance, puncture very scientifically, all the
larger veins of a cabbage-leaf, until well satisfied with the delicacy of
my hand, and the precision of my eye, he wound up his instructions by
permitting me to breathe a vein in his own arm.
"Well," said Timothy, when he first saw me practising, "I have often
heard it said, there's no getting blood out of a turnip;