and so, after
the proper propitiation of the gods, he administered to his eminent
patient a draught of opium water, and having excluded the wailing women
of the household from the sick chamber, he cut into the protuberance
with a small, sharp knife, and soon had the mysterious object in his
hand.... It was the vial of dissolved gnats' eyes--_still full and
tightly corked_! Worse, it was _not_ the vial of dissolved gnats' eyes,
but a vial of common burdock juice--the remedy _for infants griped by
their mothers' milk_....

But when the eminent Chu Yi-Foy, emerging from his benign stupor, made a
sign that he would gaze upon the cause of his distress, it was a bone
that Dr. Yen Li-Shen showed him--an authentic bone, ovoid and
evil-looking--and lately the knee cap of one Ho Kwang, brass maker in
the street of Szchen-Kiang. Dr. Yen carried this bone in his girdle to
keep off the black, blue and yellow plagues. Chu Yi-Foy, looking upon
it, wept the soft, grateful tears of an old man.

"This is twice," he said, "that you, my learned friend, have saved my
life. I have hitherto given you, in token of my gratitude, the rents,
rates, imposts and taxes, of two streets, and of the related alleys,
courts and lanes. I now give you the weight of that bone in diamonds,
in rubies, in pearls or in emeralds, as you will. And whichever of the
four you choose, I give you the other three also. For is it not said by
K'ung Fu-tsze, 'The good physician bestows what the gods merely
promise'?"

And Dr. Yen Li-Shen lowered his eyes and bowed. But he was too old in
the healing art to blush.

_III.--Neighbours_

Once I lay in hospital a fortnight while an old man died by inches
across the hall. Apparently a very painful, as it was plainly a very
tedious business. I would hear him breathing heavily for fifteen or
twenty minutes, and then he would begin shrieking in agony and yelling
for his orderly: "Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!" Now and then a nurse would
come into my room and report progress: "The old fellow's kidneys have
given up; he can't last the night," or, "I suppose the next choking
spell will fetch him." Thus he fought his titanic fight with the gnawing
rats of death, and thus I lay listening, myself quickly recovering from
a sanguinary and indecent operation.... Did the shrieks of that old man
startle me, worry me, torture me, set my nerves on edge? Not at all. I
had my meals to the accompaniment of piteous yells to God, but day by
d