"Not I," replied the Doctor. "The thunder is my friend; better still, it is my doctor."
"Your doctor?"
"Most certainly. I was struck by lightning in my bed on the 13th July, 1867, at Kew, near London, and it cured me of paralysis in my right arm, when the doctors had given up the case as hopeless."
"You must be joking."
"Not at all. It is an economical treatment by electricity. My dear sir, there are many very authentic facts which prove that thunder surpasses the most skilful physicians, and its intervention is truly marvellous in apparently hopeless cases."
"Nevertheless," said I, "I have little trust in your doctor, and would not willingly consult him."
"Because you have never seen him at work. Stay; here is an instance which I have heard of as occurring in 1817. A peasant in Connecticut, who was suffering from asthma, supposed to be incurable, was struck by lightning in a field, and radically cured."
In fact I believe the Doctor would have been capable of making the thunder into pills.
"Laugh, ignoramus!" said he to me. "You know nothing either of the weather or medicine!"
