s, on the strength of a gratis visit, sounded forth his
praise among all the good women of his acquaintance; and even prevailed
upon him to publish advertisements, importing that he would every day, at
a certain time and place, give his advice to the poor for nothing; hoping
that, by means of some lucky cure, his fame might be extended, and his
practice grow into request.

In the meantime his chariot rolled along through all the most frequented
streets, during the whole forenoon, and, at the usual hour, he never
failed to make his appearance at the medical coffee-house, with all that
solemnity of feature and address, by which the modern sons of Paean are
distinguished; not but that he was often puzzled about the decision of
his diurnal route. For the method of driving up one street and down
another, without halting, was become such a stale expedient, that the
very 'prentices used to stand at the shop doors, and ridicule the vain
parade. At length, however, he perused the map of London with great
diligence, and, having acquired a distinct idea of its topography, used
to alight at the end of long narrow thoroughfares and paved courts, where
the chariot was ordered to wait till his return; and, walking with great
gravity through the different turnings of these alleys, regain his
carriage by another passage, and resume his seat with an air of vast
importance. With a view to protract the time of his supposed visits,
he would, at one place, turn aside to a wall; at another, cheapen an
urinal; at a third corner, read a quack advertisement, or lounge a few
minutes in some bookseller's shop; and, lastly, glide into some obscure
coffee-house, and treat himself with a dram of usquebaugh.

The other means used to force a trade, such as ordering himself to be
called from church, alarming the neighbourhood with knocking at his door
in the night, receiving sudden messages in places of resort, and
inserting his cures by way of news in the daily papers, had been so
injudiciously hackneyed by every desperate sculler in physic, that they
had lost their effect upon the public, and therefore were excluded from
the plan of our adventurer, whose scheme, for the present, was to exert
himself in winning the favour of those sage Sibyls, who keep, as it were,
the temple of medicine, and admit the young priest to the service of the
altar; but this he considered as a temporary project only, until he
should have acquired interest enough to erect