up to dealing with the case.

One of my mother's earliest and most intimate friends at Florence
was a Lady Sevestre, who was then at the Baths with her husband, Sir
Thomas Sevestre, an old Indian army surgeon. He was a very old man,
and was not much known to the younger society of the place. But it
struck me that _he_ was the man for the occasion. So I rushed off to
the Baths in one of the _bagherini_ (as the little light gigs of the
country are called) which had conveyed the parties to the ground, and
knocked up Sir Thomas. Of course all the story came new to him, and
he was very much inclined to wash his hands of it. But on my
representations that a life was at stake, his old professional habits
prevailed, and he agreed to go back with me to Turrite Cava.

But no persuasions could induce him to trust himself to a _bagherino_.
And truly it would have shaken the old man well-nigh to pieces. There
was no other carriage to be had in a hurry. And at last he allowed me
to get an arm-chair rigged with a couple of poles for bearers, and
placed himself in it--not before he had taken the precaution of
slinging a bottle of pale ale to either pole of his equipage. He wore
a very wide-brimmed straw hat, a suit of professional black, and
carried a large white sunshade. And thus accoutred, and accompanied
by four stalwart bearers, he started, while I ran by the side of the
chair, as queer-looking a party as can well be imagined. I can see it
all now; and should have been highly amused at the time had I not very
strongly suspected that I was taking him to the bedside of a dying
man.

And when he reached his patient, a very few minutes sufficed for the
old surgeon to pronounce the case an absolutely hopeless one. After a