I am glad to say that I have not even
the remotest notion of what a stethoscope looks like; so that if he
flourished a musical-box or a coffee-mill it would be all one to me. But
I do think that I am not exaggerating my own sagacity if I say that I
should begin to suspect the doctor if on entering my room he flung his
legs and arms about, crying wildly, "Health! Health! priceless gift of
Nature! I possess it! I overflow with it! I yearn to impart it! Oh, the
sacred rapture of imparting health!" In that case I should suspect him
of being rather in a position to receive than to offer medical
superintendence.
Now, it is no exaggeration at all to say that any one who has ever known
any soldiers (I can only answer for English and Irish and Scotch
soldiers) would find it just as easy to believe that a real Bishop would
grovel on the carpet in a religious ecstasy, or that a real doctor would
dance about the drawing-room to show the invigorating effects of his own
medicine, as to believe that a soldier, when asked for his authority,
would point to a lot of shining weapons and declare symbolically that
might was right. Of course, a real soldier would go rather red in the
face and huskily repeat the proper formula, whatever it was, as that he
came in the King's name.
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