Part 16

To complete the charms of the doctor's medical establishment, it was constantly pervaded by a heavy, unearthly smell, that, we verily believe, no man but himself could have inhaled for an hour and lived.

Notwithstanding the unpretending and homely character of the doctor's establishment, it boasted a sounding name. The doctor himself called it, and so did the signboard over the door, "The ---- Medical Hall,"--a title which the envious thought absurd enough for a place whose proudest show was a blue bottle, a pound of salts, and a serpent. But these people did not recollect, or did not choose to recollect, the high pretensions of the doctor himself. They did not advert to the numerous degrees, honorary titles, fellowships, etc., which he had acquired, otherwise they would have looked to the man, not to the shop. Probably, however, few of them were aware of the number of these which he boasted; but it is a fact, nevertheless, that the doctor could, and did on particular occasions, sign himself thus:--"David Dobbie, M.D.; E.F.; M.N.O.; U.V.; Z.Y.X.; W.V.U.;" nor did he hesitate sometimes to alter the letters according to the inspiration of the happy moment.

Now, had the doctor's right to all these titles been taken into account, and, so taken, been appreciated as it ought, there would have been fewer sneers at his Medical Hall than there was as matters stood.

THE INVITATION.

In another part of this history we have stated that the doctor, being generally liked, was much invited out to feastings and merry-makings, and convivialities of all sorts, from the aristocratic roast turkey and bottle of port, to the plebeian Findhorn haddock and jug of toddy. But all, in this way, was fish that came in the doctor's net. Provided there was quantity--particularly in the liquor department--he was not much given to shying at quality. He certainly preferred wine, but by no means turned up his nose at a tumbler. Few men, in fact, could empty more at a sitting.

It was observed of the doctor, by those who knew him intimately, that he was always in bad humour on what he called blank days. These were days on which he had no invitation on hand for any description of guzzle whatever--either dinner, tea, supper, or a "just come up and take a glass of toddy in the evening." This seldom occurred, but it did sometimes happen; and on these occasions the doctor's short and snappish answers gave sufficient intimation of the provoking fact.

In such temper, then, and for such reason, was the doctor in the forenoon of the particular day in his life which we have made the subject of this paper. He was as cross as an old drill-sergeant; and what made him worse, the affair he had been at on the preceding night had been a very poor one. He had been hinted away after the third tumbler--treatment which had driven the doctor to swear, mentally, that he would never enter the house again. How far he would keep this determination, it remained for another invitation to prove.

In this mood, then, and at the time already alluded to, was the doctor employed, behind his counter, in measuring off some liquid in a graduated glass, which he held between him and the light, and on which he was looking very intently, as the liquid was precious, the quantity wanted small, and the glass but faintly marked, when a little boy entered the shop, and inquired if Dr. Dobbie was within.

"Yes. What do you want?" replied the doctor gruffly, and without taking his eye off the graduated glass.

"Here's a line for ye, sir," said the boy, laying a card on the counter.

"Who's it from?" roared the doctor.

"Frae Mr. Walkinshaw, sir," replied the boy, meekly; "and he would like to ken whether ye can come or no."

"Come; oh, surely. Let me see," said the doctor. "Come; ay, certainly," he added, his tone suddenly dropping down to the mild and affable, and speaking from an intuitive knowledge of the tenor of the card. "Surely; let me see." And the doctor opened the note and read, his eyes gloating, and his countenance dissolving into smiles, as he did so:--

"DEAR DOCTOR,--A few friends at half-past eight. Just a haddock and a jug of toddy. Be as pointed as you can. Won't be kept _very_ late. Dear Doctor, yours truly,

"R. WALKINSHAW."

"My compliments to Mr. Walkinshaw," said the doctor, with a bland smile, and folding up the card with a sort of affectionate air as he spoke, "and tell him I will be pointed. Stop, boy," he added, on the latter's being about to depart with his message; "stop," he said, running towards his till, and thence abstracting threepence, which he put into the boy's hand, with a--"There, my boy, take that to buy marbles." The doctor always rewarded such messengers; but he did so systematically, and by a rule of his own. For an invitation to breakfast he gave a penny, thus estimating that meal at all but the lowest possible rate; for an invitation to dinner he gave sixpence; for one to supper, threepence, as exemplified in the instance above.

In possession of Mr. Walkinshaw's invitation, the doctor continued in excellent spirits throughout the remainder of the day.

THE GUZZLE.

At the height of three stories, in a respectable-looking tenement in a certain quarter of a certain city which shall be nameless, there resided a decent widow woman of the name of Paton, who kept lodgers.

At the particular time, and on the particular occasion at and on which we introduce the reader to Mrs. Paton's lodging-house, there was a certain parlour in the said house in a state of unusual tidiness. Not to say that this parlour was not always in good order: it was; but in the present instance, it displayed an extra degree both of _redding_-up and of comfort.

An unusually large fire blazed in the polished grate, and a couple of candles, in shining candlesticks, stood on the bright mahogany table. On a small old-fashioned sideboard was exhibited a goodly display of bottles and glasses, flanked by a sugar basin, heaped up with snowy bits of refined sugar; a small plate of cut cheese, another of biscuit, and a third bearing a couple of lemons.

Everything about the room, in short, gave indication of an approaching guzzle. The symptoms were unmistakeable. The only occupant of the room at this time was a gentleman, who sat in an arm-chair opposite the fire, carelessly turning over the leaves of a new magazine. His heart, evidently, was not in the employment; he was merely putting off time, and doing so with some impatience of manner, for he was ever and anon pulling out his watch to see how the night sped on.

This gentleman was Mr. Walkinshaw, the doctor's inviter, head clerk in a respectable mercantile establishment in the city; and, we need hardly say, one of Mrs. Paton's lodgers. Neither need we say, we fancy, that he was just now waiting, and every moment expecting, the arrival of the doctor, and the other friends he had invited, nor that the preparations above described were intended for the special enjoyment of the party alluded to.

"Five-and-twenty minutes to nine," said Mr. Walkinshaw, looking for the twentieth time at the dial of his watch. "I wonder what has become of the doctor! _he_ used to be so pointed."

At this moment a ring of the door bell announced a visitor. Mr. Walkinshaw, in his impatience for the appearance of his friends, and not doubting that this was one of them, snatched up the candle, and ran to the door himself. He opened it; when a little thick-set figure, in Hessian boots, wrapped up in an ample blue cloth cloak, with an immense cape, and having a red comforter tied round his throat, presented himself. It was the doctor.

"How d'ye do? and how d'ye do? Come away. Glad to see you!" with cordial shaking of hands and joyous smiles, marked the satisfaction with which the inviter and the invited met. The doctor was in high spirits, as he always was on such occasions; that is, when there was a prospect of good eating and drinking, and nothing to pay.

Having assisted the doctor to divest himself of his cloak, hat, and comforter, Mr. Walkinshaw ushered him into his room; and having kindly seated him in the arm-chair which he had himself occupied a minute or two before, he ran to the sideboard, took therefrom a small bottle, and very small glass of the shape of a thistle-top, and approaching his guest, said in a coaxing tone, filling up at the same time--

"Thimbleful of brandy, doctor; just to take the chill off." Anything for an excuse in such cases.

"Why, no objection, my dear sir," said the doctor, smiling most graciously, taking the proffered glass of ruby-coloured liquid, wishing health and a good wife to his host, and tossing off the tiny bumper.

The doctor had scarcely bolted his alcohol, when the door bell again rung violently.

"There _they_ are at last!" exclaimed Walkinshaw, joyously.

And there they were, to be sure. Half-a-dozen rattling fellows all in a lump. In they poured into Walkinshaw's room with hilarious glee.

"Ah, doctor. Oh, doctor. Here too, doctor. Hope you're well, doctor. Glad to see you, doctor!" resounded in all quarters; for they were all intimate acquaintances of our medical friend, and were really delighted to see him.

To this running fire of salutation, the doctor replied by a series of becks, bows, and smiles, and a shaking of hands, right and left, in rapid succession.

All these, and such like preliminaries, gone through, the party took their seats around the table, and the business of the evening began. It soon did more: it progressed, and that most joyously. Jug followed jug in rapid succession. The doctor got into exuberant spirits, and sung several of his best songs, in his best manner. But alas!--

"Pleasures are," etc. etc.

They are, sweet poet, and no man could be more strongly impressed with, or would have more readily allowed the truth and happy application of thy beautiful similes, than the doctor, on the occasion of which we are speaking. Enjoyment was quickly succeeded by satiety; and alert apprehension, and quick perception, by that doziness and obfuscation of the faculties which marks the _quantum suff._ at the festive board.

The doctor was a man who could have said with the face of clay--

"And cursed be he who first cries, Hold, enough!"

But, being but mortal, after all, his powers were not illimitable. There was a boundary which even he could not pass, and at the same time lay his hand on his breast and say, "I'm sober."

That boundary the doctor had now passed by a pretty good way. In plain language, he was cut, very much cut, as was made sufficiently evident by various little symptoms,--such as a certain thickness of speech; a certain diffusion of dull red over the whole countenance, extending to and including the ears, which seemed to become transparent, like a pair of thin, flat, red pebbles; a certain look of stupidity and non-comprehension; and a certain heaviness and lacklustreness of eye, that gave these organs a strong resemblance to a couple of parboiled gooseberries.

Sensible of his own condition, sensible that he could hold out no longer, the doctor now moved, in the most intelligible language which he could conveniently command, that the diet should be deserted _pro loco et tempore_.

The motion was unanimously approved of; this unanimity having been secured by the inability of several of the party, who had been rendered _hors de combat_, to express dissent.

A general break up, then, was the consequence of the doctor's motion. Candle in hand, Mr. Walkinshaw rose and accompanied his guests to the door, towards which they moved in a long irregular file, he leading the way. In the passage, however, a momentary halt was called. It was to allow the doctor to don himself in his walking gear. With some assistance from his host, this was soon accomplished. His hat was stuck on his head, his martial cloak thrown around him, and his immense comforter, like a red blanket, coiled around his neck. Thus accoutred, the doctor and his friends evacuated the premises of their worthy host, Mr. Walkinshaw.

THE RETURN HOME, AND INCIDENTS THEREFROM ARISING.

The doctor had not proceeded far on his way home, until he found himself alone. One after another, his friends had popped off; some disappearing mysteriously, others giving fair warning of their departure, by shaking him by the hand, and wishing him

----"good night, And rosy dreams and slumbers light."

Left to his own reflections, and, we may add, to his own exertions, the doctor stumped bravely homeward, and, without meeting with anything particularly worthy of notice, arrived safely at his own _close_ mouth.

In another part of this history, we have mentioned that there were one or two difficulties that always awaited the doctor on his return home when in the particular state in which he was at this moment. The first of these difficulties was to climb the dark tortuous staircase, on the third story of which was his domicile. The second was to discriminate between his neighbours' door and his own. The reader will recollect that, to obviate this last difficulty, the doctor fell upon the ingenious expedient of counting the landing-places as he ascended, his own being number three.

The reader's memory refreshed as to these particulars, we proceed to say that the doctor, having traversed the close with a tolerably firm and steady step, commenced his laborious ascent of the stair in his usual manner, but with evidently fully more difficulty, as some of the neighbours, who heard his struggles, remarked, than ordinary,--a circumstance from which they inferred--and correctly enough, as we have seen--that the doctor was more than ordinarily overcome.

The first flight of steps the doctor accomplished with perfect success, and with perfect accuracy recorded it as number one. This done, he commenced the ascent of number two; and, after a severe struggle, accomplished it also. But by the time he had done so, the doctor had lost his reckoning, and, believing that he had gained his own landing-place, from which, we need hardly remind the reader, he was yet an entire flight of stairs distant, he deliberately pulled out his check-key, and applied it to the door of the neighbour who lived right under him,--a certain Mr. Thomson, who pursued the intellectual calling of a cheesemonger.

Having inserted the key in the lock, the doctor gave it the necessary twitch; and, obedient to the hint, the bolt rose, the door opened, and the doctor walked in.

Being pitch-dark, and the two houses--that is, the doctor's and Mr. Thomson's--being of precisely the same construction within, nothing presented itself to the unconscious burglar to inform him of the blunder he had made.

Satisfied, or rather never doubting, that all was right, the doctor shut the door, and, groping along the passage, sought the door of a small apartment on the left, which, in his own house, was his bedroom. This room he readily found; and it so happened that in Mr. Thomson's house this same apartment was also a bedroom; so that the doctor, under all circumstances, could not be blamed for feeling perfectly at ease as to his situation. In this feeling, he planted himself down in a chair, and began deliberately to unbutton his waistcoat, preparatory to tumbling in. While thus employed, the doctor indulged in a sort of soliloquy, embracing certain reflections and reminiscences connected with his present condition and recent revelries.

"All right, then," said the doctor, referring to his present position. "Snug in my own bedroom. Capital song yon of Ned's; one of Gilfirian's, I think. Writes a beautiful song, Gil--a pretty song--very pretty. Good feeling, sweet natural sentiment, and all that sort of thing. Must get his new edition, and learn half-a-dozen of them. Hah! confoundedly drunk though--that lee-lurch ugly. Never mind: dead sober in the morning; sound as a roach. Take a seidlitz, and all right."

While thus expressing the ideas that were crowding through his addled brain, the doctor's attention was suddenly attracted by a noise at the outer door. He paused to listen. It was some one, with a key, endeavouring to gain access. What could it mean? Thieves, robbers, no doubt of it. The doctor did not doubt it. So, grasping a huge, thick crab-stick, which he always carried at night, and which he had on the present occasion laid against the wall close by where he sat, the doctor stole on tiptoe towards the door, and taking up a position about a yard distant from it, raised his crab-stick aloft, and in this attitude slily awaited the entrance of the thief, whom he proposed to knock quietly down the moment he passed the door-way.

Leaving the doctor in this gallant position for a few seconds, we step aside to inform the reader of a circumstance or two with which it is right he should be made acquainted. In the first place, he should be, as he now is, informed that the person at the door, and whom the doctor took to be a midnight robber, was no other than the doctor's neighbour, Mr. Thomson himself, the lawful occupant of the house of which the former had taken possession. He had happened, like the doctor, to have been out late that night; and, like the doctor, too, was several sheets in the wind. However, that is neither here nor there to our story. But it is of some consequence to it to add, inasmuch as it accounts for the non-appearance of any one to avert the impending catastrophe, that there was no one residing in Mr. Thomson's house at the particular period of which we speak, but Mr. Thomson himself; his wife, children, and servant, being at sea-bathing quarters. Thus, then, it was that the doctor had been allowed to take and keep such undisturbed possession of the premises.

Again, the doctor being a bachelor, kept no servant at all; the domestic duties of his establishment being performed by an old woman, who came at an early hour of the morning, remained all day, and left at night.

There was thus no family circumstance connected with his own domestic establishment, the absence of which, on the present occasion, might have excited his suspicions as to his real position. Everything, then, favoured the unlucky chance now in progress. To resume: The doctor having placed himself in the hostile attitude already described, coolly and courageously awaited the entrance of the supposed burglar. He had not to wait long. The door opened; and, all unconscious of what was awaiting him, Thomson entered. It was all he was allowed to do, however; for, in the next instant, a well-directed blow from the doctor's crab-stick laid him senseless on the floor.

"Take that, you burglarious villain," shouted the doctor triumphantly, on seeing the success of his assault; "and that, and that, and that," he added, plunging sundry forcible kicks into the body of his prostrate victim with the points of his little stumpy Hessians.

Having settled his man, as he imagined, the doctor stooped down, and, seizing him by the neck of his coat, proceeded to drag him to the outside of the door. This was a work of some difficulty, as Thomson was rather a heavy man; but it was accomplished. The doctor exerted himself, and succeeded in hauling the unconscious body of his unfortunate neighbour on to the landing-place on the outside. Having got him there, he edged him towards the descent, and, giving him a shove with his foot, sent him rolling down the stairs.

The housebreaker thus disposed of, and put, as the doctor believed, beyond all power of doing any more mischief in this world, the latter, highly satisfied with what he had done, and not a little vain of his prowess, re-entered the house, carefully secured the door after him with chain and bolt, and retired to the little bedroom of which he had been before in possession.

Somewhat sobered by the occurrence which had just taken place, the doctor now discovered various little circumstances which rather surprised him. He could not, for instance, find his nightcap; it was not in the place where it used to be. Neither could he find the boot-jack; it was not where it used to be either. The bed, too, he thought, had taken up a strange position; it was not in the same corner of the room, and the head was reversed. The head of his bed used to be towards the door; he now found the foot in that direction.

All these little matters the doctor noted, and thought them rather odd; but he set them all down to the debit of his housekeeper,--some as the results of carelessness--such as the absence of the nightcap and boot-jack; others--the shifting of the bed and altering its position--to the whim of some new arrangement.

Thus satisfactorily accounting for the little omissions and discrepancies he noted, the doctor began to peel; and, in a short time after, was snugly buried beneath the blankets, with his red comforter round his head in place of a nightcap.

Leaving the doctor for a time, thus comfortably quartered, we will look after the unfortunate victim of his prowess, whose rights he was now so complacently usurping.

For fully half an hour after he had been bundled down stairs by the doctor in the way already described, poor Thomson lay without sense or motion. At about the end of that time, however, he so far recovered as to be able to emit two or three dismal groans, which happening to be overheard by the policeman on the station, who was at the moment going his rounds, he hastened towards the quarter from whence the alarming sounds proceeded, and found the ill-used cheesemonger lying at full length on the stair, head downwards, and, of course, feet uppermost.

The policeman held his lantern close to the face of the unfortunate man, to see if he could recognise him; but this he could not, and that for two reasons: First, being newly come to the station, he did not know Thomson at all; and, second, the countenance of the latter was so covered with blood, and otherwise disfigured, that, suppose he had, he could not possibly have recognised him.

Seeing the man in a senseless state, and, as he thought, perhaps mortally injured, the policeman hastened to the office to give notice of his situation, and to procure assistance to have him carried there; all of which was speedily done. A bier was brought, and on this bier the person of the unfortunate cheesemonger was placed, and borne to the police office.

Medical aid being here afforded to the sufferer, he was soon brought so far round as to be able to give some account of himself, and of the misfortune which had befallen him. His face, too, having been cleared of the blood by which it was disguised, he was recognised by several persons in the office; and being known to be a respectable man, the wonder was greatly increased to see him in so lamentable a condition. Mr. Thomson's account, however, of the occurrences of the night explained all.

He stated that, on returning home to his own house, in which there was no one living at present but himself, he was encountered by some one in the passage, and knocked down the instant he entered the door. Who or what the person was he could not tell, but he had no doubt that it was some one who had entered the house for the purpose of robbing it; and added his belief that the house was filled with robbers, who, he had no doubt, had plundered it of every portable article worth carrying away.

How he came to be found on the stair he could not tell, but supposed that he had been dragged there after he had been knocked down--that proceeding having deprived him of all consciousness.

Here ended Mr. Thomson's deposition; and great was the sensation, great the commotion which it excited in the police office. So daring a burglary--so daring an assault. The like had not been heard of for years. In a twinkling, eight or ten men were mustered, lanterned, and bludgeoned; and, headed by a sergeant, were on their march to the scene of robbery.