unch.
The doctor could tell you the same."

Ten minutes afterward Sam was tucked up in his bed, while in an
adjoining room the young physician communicated his diagnosis to Doctor
Eichendorfer.

"Arteriosclerosis, I should say," he murmured, and Doctor Eichendorfer
sniffed audibly.

"You mean Bright's Disease--ain't it?" he said. "That feller's arteries
is as sound as plumbing."

Doctor Eichendorfer had received his medical training in Vienna and he
considered it to be a solemn duty never to agree with the diagnosis of
a native M.D.

"I thought of Bright's Disease," the young physician replied, speaking
a little less than the naked truth; for in diagnosing Sam's ailment he
had thought of nearly every disease he could remember.

"Well, you could take it from me, Doctor," Eichendorfer concluded,
"when one of these old-timers goes under there's a history of a rich,
unbalanced diet behind it; and Bright's Disease it is. Also, you
shouldn't forget to send in your bill--not a cent less than ten
dollars."

He shook his confrere warmly by the hand; and three hours later the
melancholy circumstance of Sam's Bright's Disease was known to every
member of the cloak and suit trade, with one exception--to wit, as the
lawyers say, Sam himself. He knew that he had had _gefuellte Rinderbrust_,
but by seven o'clock this knowledge became only a torment as the savoury
odour of the family dinner ascended to his bedroom.

"Babette," he called faintly, as becomes a convalescent, "ain't I going
to have no dinner at all to-night?"

For answer Babette brought in a covered tray, on which were arranged
two pieces of dry toast and a glass of buttermilk.

"What's this?" Sam cried.

"That's your dinner," Babette replied, "and you should thank Gawd you
are able to eat it."

"You don't got to told me who I should thank for such slops which you
are bringing me," he said, with every trace of convalescence gone from
his tones. "Take that damn thing away and give me something to eat.
Ain't that _gedaempftes Kalbfleisch_ I smell?"

Babette made no reply, but gazed sadly at her father as she placed the
tray on a chair beside his bed.

"You don't know yourself how sick you are," she said. "Doctor Eichendorfer
says you should be very quiet."

This admonition produced no effect on Sam, who immediately started on
an abusive criticism of physicians in general and Dr. Sigmund
Eichendorfer in particular.

"What does that _dummer Esel_ know?"