he
unluckily prescribed phlebotomy to a gentleman of some rank, who chanced
to expire during the operation, and quarrelled with his landlord the
apothecary, who charged him with having forgot the good offices he had
done him in the beginning of his career, and desired he would provide
himself with another lodging.

All these mishaps, treading upon the heels of one another, had a very
mortifying effect upon his practice. At every tea-table his name was
occasionally put to the torture, with that of the vile creature whom he
had seduced, though it was generally taken for granted by all those
female casuists, that she must have made the first advances, for it could
not be supposed that any man would take much trouble in laying schemes
for the ruin of a person whose attractions were so slender, especially
considering the ill state of her health, a circumstance that seldom adds
to a woman's beauty or good-humour; besides, she was always a pert minx,
that affected singularity, and a masculine manner of speaking, and many
of them had foreseen that she would, some time or other, bring herself
into such a premunire. At all gossipings, where the apothecary or his
wife assisted, Fathom's pride, ingratitude, and malpractice were
canvassed; in all clubs of married men he was mentioned with marks of
abhorrence and detestation, and every medical coffee-house rung with his
reproach. Instances of his ignorance and presumption were quoted, and
many particulars feigned for the purpose of defamation, so that our hero
was exactly in the situation of a horseman, who, in riding at full speed
for the plate, is thrown from the saddle in the middle of the race, and
left without sense or motion upon the plain.

His progress, though rapid, had been so short, that he could not be
supposed to have laid up store against such a day of trouble, and as he
still cherished hopes of surmounting those obstacles which had so
suddenly started up in his way, he would not resign his equipage nor
retrench his expenses, but appeared as usual in all public places with
that serenity and confidence of feature which he had never deposited, and
maintained his external pomp upon the little he had reserved in the days
of his prosperity, and the credit he had acquired by the punctuality of
his former payments. Both these funds, however, failed in a very little
time, his lawsuit was a gulf that swallowed up all his ready money, and
the gleanings of his practice were s