Part 41 (2/2)

He now looked up and said politely, ”Ah! Dr. Sampson, I am glad to see you here. The seizure is of a cataleptic nature, I apprehend. The treatment hitherto has been hot epithems to the abdomen, and----”

Here Sampson, who had examined the patient keenly, and paid no more attention to Osmond than to a fly buzzing, interrupted him as unceremoniously--

”Poisoned,” said he philosophically.

”Poisoned!!” screamed the people.

”Poisoned!” cried Mr. Osmond, in whose little list of stereotyped maladies poisoned had no place. ”Is there any one you have reason to suspect?”

”I don't suspect, nor conject, sir: I know. The man is poisoned, the substance strychnine. Now stand out of the way you gaping gabies, and let me work. Hy, young Oxford! you are a man: get behind and hold both his arms for your life! That's you!”

He whipped off his coat laid hold of Osmond's epithems, chucked them across the room, saying, ”You may just as well squirt rose-water at a house on fire;” drenched his handkerchief with chloroform, sprang upon the patient like a mountain cat and chloroformed him with all his might.

Attacked so skilfully and resolutely, Maxley resisted little for so strong a man; but the potent poison within fought virulently: as a proof, the chloroform had to be renewed three times before it could produce any effect. At last the patient yielded to the fumes and became insensible.

Then the arched body subsided and the rigid muscles relaxed and turned supple. Sampson kneaded the man like dough by way of comment.

”It is really very extraordinary,” said Osmond.

”Mai--dearr--sirr, nothing's extraornary t' a man that knows the reason of iverything.”

He then inquired if any one in the room had noticed at what intervals of time the pains came on.

”I am sorry to say it is continuous,” said Osmond.

”Mai--dearr--sirr, nothing on airth is continuous: iverything has paroxysms and remissions--from a toothache t' a cancer.”

He repeated his query in various forms, till at last a little girl squeaked out, ”If--_you_---please, sir, the throes do come about every ten minutes, for I was a looking at the clock; I carries father his dinner at twelve.”

”If you please, ma'am, there's half a guinea for you for not being such an' ijjit as the rest of the world, especially the Dockers.” And he jerked her half a sovereign.

A stupor fell on the a.s.sembly. They awoke from it to examine the coin, and see if it was real, or only yellow air.

Maxley came to and gave a sigh of relief. When he had been insensible, yet out of pain, nearly eight minutes by the clock, Sampson chloroformed him again. ”I'll puzzle ye, my friend strych,” said he. ”How will ye get your perriodical paroxysms when the man is insensible? The Dox say y'

act direct on the spinal marrow. Well, there's the spinal marrow where you found it just now. Act on it again, my lad! I give ye leave--if ye can. Ye can't; bekase ye must pa.s.s through the Brain to get there: and I occupy the Brain with a swifter ajint than y' are, and mean to keep y'

out of it till your power to kill evaporates, being a vigitable.”

With this his spirits mounted, and he indulged in a harmless and favourite fiction: he feigned the company were all males and medical students, Osmond included, and he the lecturer. ”Now, jintlemen,” said he, ”obsairve the great Therey of the Perriodeecity and Remitteney of all disease, in conjuncks.h.i.+n with its practice. All diseases have paroxysms and remissions, which occur at intervals; sometimes it's a year, sometimes a day, an hour, ten minutes; but whatever th' interval, they are true to it: they keep time. Only when the disease is retirin, the remissions become longer, the paroxysms return at a greater interval, and just the revairse when the pas.h.i.+nt is to die. This, jintlemen, is man's life from the womb to the grave: the throes that precede his birth are remittent like ivery thing else, but come at diminished intervals when he has really made up his mind to be born (his first mistake, sirs, but not his last); and the paroxysms of his mortal disease come at shorter intervals when he is really goon off the hooks: but still chronometrically; just as watches keep time whether they go fast or slow. Now, jintlemen, isn't this a beautiful Therey?”

”Oh, mercy! Oh, good people help me! Oh, Jesus Christ have pity on me!”

And the sufferer's body was bent like a bow, and his eyes filled with horror, and his toes pointed at his chin.

The Doctor hurled himself on the foe. ”Come,” said he, ”smell to this, lad! That's right! He is better already, jintlemen, or he couldn't howl, ye know. Deevil a howl in um before I gave um puff chlorofm. Ah! would ye? would ye?”

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