Read The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks for Free Online

which does more good than his medicine, I am sure. I looked with interest at the bag he carries, which is in good condition and about ten years old, I should judge. I always estimate the length of a doctor’s practice by the look of his bag. It has been suggested to me that doctors may sometimes buy new bags, but I know that this is untrue. They buy a bag when they get their degrees, and make it do till they die, just as the monks of certain orders are given one gown when they take their vows, and wear it to the grave. When the doctor left I was alone with my ailing community, and Marchbanks Towers was indistinguishable from a lazar-house. I flitted about (Florence Nightingale Marchbanks) saying a kind word here, bathing a fevered brow there, and ever and anon holding a cup of water to parched lips. I enjoyed this greatly, for it satisfied my urge for amateur quackery and gave me a fine picture of myself as a noble, self-sacrificing, devoted figure.
    My only assistant in the Crisis at the Towers is kindly and willing but speaks no language known to me except German, and I can only be said to speak German in a Pickwickian sense. I tried to explain about mumps and chickenpox in German, with the curious result that I forgot all the German I ever knew, but developed surprising fluency in French. Chickenpox is “la petite vérole volante”; mumps stumps me in both languages. I fell back on saying “Kinderdizeezen” with a gutteral accent, though I know this is nonsense. Nor could I think of the German word for “nurse,” though the allied word for “bedpan” rose from the depths of mymemory, to my astonishment. My assistant regarded all this as highly comic, and so did some of the patients, who laughed so much that they felt better and ate hugely of a pie and a jelly which kind friends sent in. After a very full day I retired to bed, but started out of a sound sleep at 2 a.m. crying “die Krankenpflieger!” which I believe to be the word for nurse which eluded me all day, though I may be wrong. But I wish I didn’t remember my scraps of French when I want German, and a few tatters of Welsh when I am confronted by a Frenchman.
    More kind friends who knew what I was Going Through sent food, and some sent flowers. This was a great help, for although I pride myself on my cooking it is aimed at healthy appetites, and invalids tend to gag and muffle their faces with the blankets when I offer it to them. They were all very glad to get tapioca pudding, which looks not unlike chickenpox—is there a subtle psychological connection here?—and jelly and such delicate fare, but they lacked stomach for my lampreys stewed in wine, devilled seagull, minced moose, and similar substantial dishes.… All through this siege of illness, I behaved wonderfully, rushing upstairs with trays, doing household tasks ill-suited to my masculine dignity, amusing sick children with displays of sleight-of-hand, and whatnot. My German-speaking assistant was lost in admiration of my energy and high spirits. “Was fur ein Avatismus!” she murmured. After a bout with a dictionary I discovered that she meant that I am a Hindoo god returned to earth. Probably one of those gods with eight arms, two pair of legs, and a grin of fixed benevolence.
    I escaped from the lazar-house last evening, having tucked all the lazars (great and small) into their bedsand arranged bountiful supplies of paper handkerchiefs, water, reading matter, zinc ointment, and aspirin within their reach. I went to a concert at which a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman played with great accomplishment on two pianos. But the labours of nursing the sick have dulled my critical faculty, and instead of listening to the music I kept wondering if the young woman wore a powerful corset, and if not, how did she manage to sit up so straight? I reflected also that what I wrote about this concert would be unfairly affected by the good looks of the players; I am incapable of resisting