Philip is no ordinary lad. There is the light of genius in his thoughtful face, and I could only say, “Philip, God bless you!”
I am now forty-five. There are grey hairs plentifully bestrewn among my locks. There are wrinkles at the corners of my eyes, wrinkles on my forehead, wrinkles on my heart. I have been engaged in the practice of physic now in this large and populous manufacturing town of Rexford for twelve years, and it has never paid yet. Were it not for my wife’s legacy, we must have given up long since.
“Andrew Plympton!” said Sophia to me impressively last evening, “let us leave Wimpledown House. The tax-bills are coming again, and there is nothing to pay them with. Barlington gets all the practice, and Scorlings—they live and we grovel. Let us go away,—let’s go away, anywhere,—dear!”
But I clasped my hands over my face. I said, “For heaven’s sake, Sophia, don’t you give way, don’t you despair! If you do, then we are lost indeed!”
And we sat and looked at one another. The fire flickered, the shadows deepened, the gas-lamps from the street cast their reflections upon the walls of the room, and we sat brooding, with the fiend of despair upon our hearts.
This morning, Jeremiah Peters, Esq., drew up his carriage at our gates.
“A little tickling cough, doctor; just a little cough.”
So I examined his throat, and sounded his chest. There was nothing wrong with it. I could see no sign of the slightest ailment. He looked particularly rosy and well for a man of seventy-two. I said to myself, “Can he be making a fool of me?” Then the temptation came strong upon me, “Sophia has not a sixpence in her pocket—Lydia wants shoes. If I do not write him a prescription, Peters will think it was no use his coming. He’ll never pay me if I don’t. He wants no physic, but it will do him no harm—and me a great deal of good. Shall I give him a linctus, oxymel of squills, syrup of poppies and a little nitre? It’s innocent enough—shall I?”
“Hum! ahem! that is to say, Mr. Peters. In the Devil’s name, my good sir, you want no physic! If you stay a minute longer I shall be driven to it, in spite of myself!”
“Dr. Plympton, are you mad?”
“Ah, if I only were,” I said. “But I can’t do it if I starve. I can’t belie my conscience. You are in good health, sir, and want none of my stock-in-trade, and that’s the whole of the matter!”
“Plympton,” says Mr. Peters, “you’re a gentleman, sir, and I honour you.” And he went away.
And so, just as I had written thus far, determined to make a confidante of the public, as a desperate act of throwing the neglect I suffer in its face, Lydia brings in a note, and lays it with paled cheek before me. “It is about the taxes, child. There’s no use in looking so dull, Lydia.” And as I raised my eyes from my work, I perceived that it was the handwriting of Jeremiah Peters, Esq.
With trembling hands I opened it. It lies beside me now. It is a Bank of England note for 100l. “A token of respect from Jeremiah Peters, for the character of a man who, in the middle of the nineteenth century, has a conscience!”
And who knows but that the patients may come after all.
A FEW WORDS ON STEAM NAVIGATION.
To those who take an interest in observing the gigantic improvements which have taken place during the last eighty years in the history of steam navigation, no more favourable opportunity could be afforded than a visit to the department of the South Kensington Museum known as the “Museum of Patents,” in the centre of which are placed two steam engines, one being called “the parent engine of steam navigation,” the other being a model of the paddle engines of the Great Eastern. There they stand, side by side, the first and the last, the alpha and omega of this great branch of science, the model in the latter case being as large as the original engine in the former. There are other models around them showing the gradual march that has taken place in steam engine building; but these in no degree diminish the extraordinary contrast apparent between the two before-named machines, one of which was constructed in 1788, the other in 1857; the former rough, dirty, and with every mark of age and wear about it, but as a relic invaluable; the latter bright and new, and probably the finest specimen of modelling ever exhibited. Well, indeed, may each be placed (as they are) under a handsome damp-proof glass case, for well is each worthy of it.
The history of “the parent engine of steam navigation” is as follows.
About the year 1780 Patrick Miller, Esq., of Dalswinton, made a large number of experiments, the object of which was to demonstrate the value of his theory that double vessels or boats, having a paddle or paddles in the centre between the boats (which were connected) which should be worked by hand labour, could be propelled at a higher rate of speed than ordinary vessels with sails. At the time he was making these experiments, a gentleman named Mr. James Taylor was paying him a visit, and took great interest in them, and it is unquestionably to him that we are indebted for the application of the steam engine to navigation. The following account from the pen of Mr. Taylor himself will show how the idea first had its origin.
