STRONG SYMPTOMS OF MUTINY, WHICH IS FORTUNATELY QUELLED BY GRANTING A SUPPLY.

Ir was a beautiful sunshiny warm morning when I arose, and, as Bramble intended that we should leave Greenwich the next day, I thought I might as well call at the house of Dr. 'T'adpole, and try if I could see him before I went. When I arrived there he was not at

home, but my namesake Tom was, as usual, in the shop. Tom was two or three years older than me, being between seventeen and eighteen, and he had now grown a great tall fellow. We always were very good friends, when we occasionally met, and he generally appeared to be as good tempered and grinning as ever; but when I now entered the shop I found him very grave and dejected, so much so that I could not help asking him what was the matter.

“Matter enough, I think," said Tom, who was pounding something in the mortar. "I'll not stay here, that's flat. I'll break my indentures, as sure as my name's Tom Cob, and I'll set up an opposition, and I'll join the Friends of the People Society, and the Anti-Bible Society, and every other opposition Anti in the country."

"Why, what has happened, Tom?"

"I'll make speeches against Church and against State, and against the Aristocracy, and Habeas Corpus, and against Physic, and against Standing Armies, and Magna Charta, and every other rascally tyranny and oppression to which we are subjected, that I will!" Here Tom gave such a thump with the pestle, that I thought he would have split the mortar.

“But what is it, Tom?" inquired I, as I sat down. "What has the doctor done?"

"Why, I'll tell you, the liquorice is all gone, and he won't order any more."

"Well, that is because you have eaten it all."

"No, I haven't; I haven't eaten a bit for these five weeks: it's all been used in pharmacopey, honestly used, and he can't deny it." "Who used it?"

"Why, I did: he said he wouldn't stand my eating liquorice, and I told him that I shouldn't eat any more. No more I have, but I ain't well, and I prescribes for myself. Haven't I a right to do that? Mayn't I physic myself? I am a doctor as well as he is. Who makes up all the medicine, I should like to know? who ties up the bottles and writes directions? Well, my insides are out of order, and I prescribes for myself-black draughts ‘omnes duas horas sumendum;' and now he says that, as the ingredients are all gone, I shan't take any more." "And pray what were the ingredients, Tom?"

“Why, laxative and alterative, as suits my complaint-Extract. liquor.-aqua pura—haustus.”

"And what is that?"

QUALIFICATIONS FOR A DOCTOR.

203

66 Liquorice and water, to be sure; there's nothing else I can take : I've tasted everything in the shop, from plate powder to aqua fortis, and everything goes against my stomach."

"Well, Tom, it's a hard case; but perhaps the doctor will think better of it."

"He'd better, or I'll set up for myself, for I won't stand it any longer; it ain't only for myself but for others that I care. Why, I've a hankering for Anny Whistle (you know her, don't you?) a pretty little girl with red lips--lives in Church Street. Well, as long as I could bring her a bit of liquorice when I went to see her all was smooth enough, and I got many a kiss when no one was nigh; but now that I can't fork out a bit as big as a marble, she's getting quite shy of me, and is always walking with Bill, the butcher's boy. I know he gives her bulls'-eyes-I seed him one day buying a ha'porth. Now, ain't that hard?"

"Why, certainly, the affair becomes serious; but still, how you are to set up for yourself I don't know. You are not qualified."

There must

"Oh! ain't I? Just as much as most doctors are. be a beginning, and if I gives wrong medicine at first, then I'll try another, and so on, until I come to what will cure them. Soon learn, Tom."

"Well, but how will you do about surgery ?"

"Surgery? Oh, I'll do very well; don't know much about it just now-soon learn."

"Why, would you venture to take off a man's leg, Tom? Do you know how to take up the arteries?"

"Would I take off a man's leg? To be sure I would, as quick as the doctor could. As for the arteries, why, I might puzzle a little about them; but by the time I had taken off three or four legs I should know something about them. Practice makes perfect-soon learn, Tom."

"But all your first patients would die.”

"I don't know that. At all events I should do my best, and no man can do more, and if they did die, why, it would be by the visitation of God, wouldn't it?"

"Not altogether, I'm afraid. It won't do, Tom"

"It has done from the beginning of the world, and will do. I say there's no learning without practice. People spoil at first in every

trade, and make afterwards, and a man ain't born a doctor any more than he is a carpenter."

"No, but if I recollect right, to be a surgeon you ought to walk the hospital, as they term it."

"Well, and haven't I for these last four years? When I carries out my basket of physic I walks the hospital right through, twice at least every day in the week."

"That's Greenwich Hospital."

However, the

I didn't clean

"Well, so it is, and plenty of surgical cases in it. doctor and I must come to a proper understanding. his boots this morning. I wish, if you see him, Tom, you'd reason with him a little."

"I'll see what I can do, but don't be rash. Good bye, Tom; mind you tell the doctor that I called."

"Well, I will; but that's not in my indentures."

I called in at the widow's after I left the doctor's shop, and communicated the intended rebellion on the part of Tom.

'Well," said Mrs. St. Felix, "I shall not forget to make the Spanish claim, and prevent Tom from walking Spanish. The doctor is very inconsiderate; he forgets that Tom's regard for liquorice is quite as strong as his own liking for a cigar. Now, if the doctor don't promise me to have a fresh supply for Tom, I won't let him have a cigar for himself."

The doctor was compelled to surrender at discretion. The next wagon brought down one hundredweight of liquorice, and Tom recovered his health and the smiles of Anny Whistle.

When I left the widow's I proceeded to the hospital to find Anderson and my father. As I walked along I perceived Dick Harness on a bench, who hailed me.

"Well, Tom, I haven't seen anything of you for I don't know how long, since you've taken to a seafaring life. This is a beautiful day, is it not? It makes one feel so happy and cheerful such a day as this. Everybody and everything looks gay; the birds seem so merry, and the little clouds seem to scud away as if their hearts were as light as themselves. Come, sit down a minute; here's a song for you you've never heard, one I don't often sing, because they say it's all about myself.”

"Well, then, I should like to hear that." "Here goes, then.

SAM SWIPES.

"There's Bill's fiddle, Dick," said I, getting up; "I thought you would bring him out."

"Yes, I was sure of that. I'll sing another verse or two, and then be off to the park, and leave him in the lurch."

"I can't wait any more, Dick; I must go to my father," said I. "Well, off with you, then, and I'm off too. Sing tura la, tura la, tura lura la. Bill's coming down. How savage the nigger will be !"

CHAPTER XXXI.

IN WHICH MY FATHER PROVES HE CAN GIVE GOOD ADVICE AS WELL AS PETER ANDERSON.

I FOUND my father under the colonnade, and inquired of him if Anderson was there.

"No, he's not," replied my father; "he has been sent for by the officers; so stop, Tom-that is, if you can spare a minute for your own father."

"Of course I can," replied I, taking my seat by him.