in badly-broken English, for he made little
progress in acquiring the language, at once amused and instructed. Among
his fellow surgeons and officers of his acquaintance, he ranked high as
a skilful surgeon on account of superior attainments, acquired partly
through the German Universities and partly in the Austrian service,
during the campaign of Magenta, Solferino, and the siege of Mantua. With
a German's fondness for music, he beguiled the tedium of many a long
winter evening. With his German education he had imbibed radicalism to
its full extent. Thoroughly conversant with the Sacred Scriptures he was
a doubter, if not a positive unbeliever, from the Pentateuch to
Revelation. In addition to this, his flings at the Chaplain, his
messmate, made him unpopular with the religiously inclined of the
regiment. He had besides, the stolidity of the German, and their cool
calculating practicalism. This did not always please the men. They
thought him unfeeling.

"What for you shrug your shoulders?' said he on one occasion to a man
from whose shoulders he was removing a large fly blister.

"It hurts."

"Bah, wait till I cuts your leg off--and you know what hurts."

"Here, you sick man, here goot place," said he, addressing a man just
taken to the hospital with fever, in charge of an orderly sergeant, at
surgeon's call, "goot place, nice, warm, dead man shust left." Remarks
such as these did not, of course, tend to increase the comfort of the
men; they soon circulated among the regiment, were discussed in
quarters, and as may be supposed greatly exaggerated, and all at the
Doctor's cost. But the Doctor pursued the even tenor of his way,
entirely unmindful of them.

About the time of which we write, a clever, honest man died of a disease
always sudden in its termination, rheumatic attack upon the heart. The
Doctor had informed him fully of his disease, and that but little could
be done for it. The poor man, however, was punctual in attendance at
Surgeon's Call, and insisted upon some kind of medicine. Bread pills
were furnished. One morning, after great complaint of pain about the
heart, and a few spasms, he died. His comrades, shocked, thought his
death the effect of improper medicine. The Doctor's pride was touched.
He insisted upon calling in other surgeons; the pills found in his
pocket were analyzed, and discovered to be only bread. The corpse was
opened, and the cause of death fully revealed. As the Doctor walked away