out of nature
altogether.'

Mr Jobling pulled out his shirt-frill of fine linen, as though he would
have said, 'This is what I call nature in a medical man, sir;' and
looked at Jonas for an observation.

Jonas not being in a condition to pursue the subject, took up a case of
lancets that was lying on the table, and opened it.

'Ah!' said the doctor, leaning back in his chair, 'I always take 'em out
of my pocket before I eat. My pockets are rather tight. Ha, ha, ha!'

Jonas had opened one of the shining little instruments; and was
scrutinizing it with a look as sharp and eager as its own bright edge.

'Good steel, doctor. Good steel! Eh!'

'Ye-es,' replied the doctor, with the faltering modesty of ownership.
'One might open a vein pretty dexterously with that, Mr Chuzzlewit.'

'It has opened a good many in its time, I suppose?' said Jonas looking
at it with a growing interest.

'Not a few, my dear sir, not a few. It has been engaged in a--in a
pretty good practice, I believe I may say,' replied the doctor, coughing
as if the matter-of-fact were so very dry and literal that he couldn't
help it. 'In a pretty good practice,' repeated the doctor, putting
another glass of wine to his lips.

'Now, could you cut a man's throat with such a thing as this?' demanded
Jonas.

'Oh certainly, certainly, if you took him in the right place,' returned
the doctor. 'It all depends upon that.'

'Where you have your hand now, hey?' cried Jonas, bending forward to
look at it.

'Yes,' said the doctor; 'that's the jugular.'

Jonas, in his vivacity, made a sudden sawing in the air, so close behind
the doctor's jugular that he turned quite red. Then Jonas (in the same
strange spirit of vivacity) burst into a loud discordant laugh.

'No, no,' said the doctor, shaking his head; 'edge tools, edge tools;
never play with 'em. A very remarkable instance of the skillful use of
edge-tools, by the way, occurs to me at this moment. It was a case of
murder. I am afraid it was a case of murder, committed by a member of
our profession; it was so artistically done.'

'Aye!' said Jonas. 'How was that?'

'Why, sir,' returned Jobling, 'the thing lies in a nutshell. A certain
gentleman was found, one morning, in an obscure street, lying in
an angle of a doorway--I should rather say, leaning, in an upright
position, in the angle of a doorway, and supported consequently by the
doorway. Upon his waistcoat there was one solitary drop of blood. He w