TAKEN FOE GRANTED.

Western Star, Issue 281, 25 January 1879, Page 7

TAKEN FOE GRANTED.

A doctor who had one day allowed himself to drink too much, was sent for, to see a fashionable lady who was ailing. He sat down by the bedside, took out his watch, and began to count her pulse as well as his obfuscated condition would permit. He counted: ‘ One, two, three,’ then he got confused, and began again : ‘One, two.’ No; he could not do it. Thoroughly ashamed of himself, he shut his watch, muttering: ‘Tipsy, I declare • —tipsy !’ Staggering to bis feet, he told the lady to keep her bed and take some hot lemonade, to throw her into a perspiration, and he would see her next day. In the morning he received the following note from*the lady, marked “ private.” “ Dear doctor—You were right. I dare not deny it. But lam thoroughly ashamed of myself, and will be more careful for the future. Please accept the enclosed fee for your visit (a ten-pound note), and do not, T entreat of you, breathe a word about the state in which you fouud me.” The lady, in fact, had herself been drinking too much, and catching the doctor’s murmured words, thought they referred to her. He was too far gone to see what was the matter wi' h his patient, and she was too far gone to see that the doctor was iu the same condition.