"Place a chair, and leave us, Fritz," said Sir Horace; and then, turning slowly round, smiled as he said, "I'm happy to make your acquaintance, sir. My friend, Lord Glencore, has told me with what skill you treated him, and I embrace the fortunate occasion to profit by your professional ability."

"I'm your humble slave, sir," said Billy, with a deep, rich brogue; and the manner of the speaker, and his accent, seemed so to surprise Upton that he continued to stare at him fixedly for some seconds without speaking.

"You studied in Scotland, I believe?" said he, with one of the most engaging smiles, while he hazarded the question.

"Indeed, then, I did not, sir," said Billy, with a heavy sigh; "all I know of the ars medicâtrix I picked up,—currendo per campos,—as one may say, vagabondizing through life, and watching my opportunities. Nature gave me the Hippocratic turn, and I did my best to improve it."

"So that you never took out a regular diploma?" said Sir Horace, with another and still blander smile.

"Sorra one, sir! I 'm a doctor just as a man is a poet,—by sheer janius! 'T is the study of nature makes both one and the other; that is, when there's the raal stuff,—the divinus afflatus,—inside. Without you have that, you 're only a rhymester or a quack."

"You would, then, trace a parallel between them?" said Upton, graciously.

"To be sure, sir! Ould Heyric says that the poet and the physician is one:—

     "'For he who reads the clouded skies,
        And knows the utterings of the deep,
     Can surely