as the garret. People hereabout did
not know one another, or did not want to know, so that it was of little
avail to ask questions. At length I saw a light through the cracks in
the attic door, and walked in. To my amazement, the first person I saw
was a woman of about thirty-five, in pearl-gray Quaker dress--one of
your quiet, good-looking people. She was seated on a stool beside a
straw mattress upon which lay a black woman. There were three others
crowded close around a small stove, which was red-hot--an unusual
spectacle in this street. Altogether a most nasty den.

As I came in, the little Quaker woman got up and said: "I took the
liberty of sending for thee to look at this poor woman. I am afraid she
has the smallpox. Will thee be so kind as to look at her?" And with this
she held down the candle toward the bed.

"Good gracious!" I said hastily, seeing how the creature was speckled "I
didn't understand this, or I would not have come. I have important cases
which I cannot subject to the risk of contagion. Best let her alone,
miss," I added, "or send her to the smallpox hospital."

Upon my word, I was astonished at the little woman's indignation. She
said just those things which make you feel as if somebody had been
calling you names or kicking you--Was I really a doctor? and so on.
It did not gain by being put in the ungrammatical tongue of Quakers.
However, I never did fancy smallpox, and what could a fellow get by
doctoring wretches like these? So I held my tongue and went away. About
a week afterwards I met Evans, the dispensary man, a very common fellow,
who was said to be frank.

"Helloa!" says he. "Doctor, you made a nice mistake about that darky
at No. 709 Bedford street the other night. She had nothing but measles,
after all."

"Of course I knew," said I, laughing; "but you don't think I was going
in for dispensary trash, do you?"

"I should think not," said Evans.

I learned afterwards that this Miss Barker had taken an absurd fancy
to the man because he had doctored the darky and would not let the
Quakeress pay him. The end was, when I wanted to get a vacancy in the
Southwark Dispensary, where they do pay the doctors, Miss Barker was
malignant enough to take advantage of my oversight by telling the whole
story to the board; so that Evans got in, and I was beaten.

You may be pretty sure that I found rather slow the kind of practice I
have described, and began to look about for chances of betterin