ly, and have no difficulty
at all in remembering the track of the great vessels and nerves, and
knowing just what tracks will be safe and what unsafe. It is just the
same thing with the geologists. Here is a man close by us boring for
water through one of our ledges, because somebody else got water
somewhere else in that way; and a person who knows geology or ought to
know it, because he has given his life to it, tells me he might as well
bore there for lager-beer as for water.

--I thought we had had enough of this particular matter, and that I
should like to hear what the Master had to say about the three
professions he knew something about, each compared with the others.

What is your general estimate of doctors, lawyers, and ministers?--said
I.

--Wait a minute, till I have got through with your first question,--said
the Master.---One thing at a time. You asked me about the young doctors,
and about our young doctor. They come home tres biens chausses, as a
Frenchman would say, mighty well shod with professional knowledge. But
when they begin walking round among their poor patients, they don't
commonly start with millionnaires,--they find that their new shoes of
scientific acquirements have got to be broken in just like a pair of
boots or brogans. I don't know that I have put it quite strong enough.
Let me try again. You've seen those fellows at the circus that get up on
horseback so big that you wonder how they could climb into the saddle.
But pretty soon they throw off their outside coat, and the next minute
another one, and then the one under that, and so they keep peeling off
one garment after another till people begin to look queer and think they
are going too far for strict propriety. Well, that is the way a fellow
with a real practical turn serves a good many of his scientific wrappers,
flings 'em off for other people to pick up, and goes right at the work of
curing stomach-aches and all the other little mean unscientific
complaints that make up the larger part of every doctor's business. I
think our Dr. Benjamin is a worthy young man, and if you are in need of a
doctor at any time I hope you will go to him; and if you come off without
harm, I will recommend some other friend to try him.

--I thought he was going to say he would try him in his own person, but
the Master is not fond of committing himself.

Now, I will answer your other question, he said. The lawyers are the
cleverest men, the mini