LUIGI DEFIES GALEN

When the doctor arrived at Aunt Patsy Cooper’s house, he found the lights going and everybody up and dressed and in a great state of solicitude and excitement.  The twins were stretched on a sofa in the sitting-room, Aunt Patsy was fussing at Angelo’s arm, Nancy was flying around under her commands, the two young boys were trying to keep out of the way and always getting in it, in order to see and wonder, Rowena stood apart, helpless with apprehension and emotion, and Luigi was growling in unappeasable fury over Angelo’s shameful flight.

As has been reported before, the doctor was a fool—­a kind-hearted and well-meaning one, but with no tact; and as he was by long odds the most learned physician in the town, and was quite well aware of it, and could talk his learning with ease and precision, and liked to show off when he had an audience, he was sometimes tempted into revealing more of a case than was good for the patient.

He examined Angelo’s wound, and was really minded to say nothing for once; but Aunt Patsy was so anxious and so pressing that he allowed his caution to be overcome, and proceeded to empty himself as follows, with scientific relish: 

“Without going too much into detail, madam—­for you would probably not understand it, anyway—­I concede that great care is going to be necessary here; otherwise exudation of the esophagus is nearly sure to ensue, and this will be followed by ossification and extradition of the maxillaris superioris, which must decompose the granular surfaces of the great infusorial ganglionic system, thus obstructing the action of the posterior varioloid arteries, and precipitating compound strangulated sorosis of the valvular tissues, and ending unavoidably in the dispersion and combustion of the marsupial fluxes and the consequent embrocation of the bicuspid populo redax referendum rotulorum.”

A miserable silence followed.  Aunt Patsy’s heart sank, the pallor of despair invaded her face, she was not able to speak; poor Rowena wrung her hands in privacy and silence, and said to herself in the bitterness of her young grief, “There is no hope—­it is plain there is no hope”; the good-hearted negro wench, Nancy, paled to chocolate, then to orange, then to amber, and thought to herself with yearning sympathy and sorrow, “Po’ thing, he ain’ gwyne to las’ throo de half o’ dat”; small Henry choked up, and turned his head away to hide his rising tears, and his brother Joe said to himself, with a sense of loss, “The baptizing’s busted, that’s sure.”  Luigi was the only person who had any heart to speak.  He said, a little bit sharply, to the doctor: 

“Well, well, there’s nothing to be gained by wasting precious time; give him a barrel of pills—­I’ll take them for him.”

“You?” asked the doctor.

“Yes.  Did you suppose he was going to take them himself?”

“Why, of course.”

“Well, it’s a mistake.  He never took a dose of medicine in his life.  He can’t.”