when the mind was morally sane, it ought only to be set down to the
natural envy existing among members of different professions, and
was much to be deplored, for instead of one being ambitious to claim
a superiority over the other, they ought to regard themselves
coworkers in equally good causes, and for the advancement of a
common humanity. In order to settle the questions they had attempted
to debate, I proposed that they adopt the rule laid down by our
noisy Congressmen, each being satisfied in his own mind that he had
demolished the arguments of the other, and for ever settled the
question at issue. The battering they had given each other was a
thing of the past. Was it not better then to let a bygone be a
bygone, rather than seek a technical satisfaction, that while it
afforded the public some amusement would only bring themselves a
great deal of pain? They could no more recall the past than they
could make a set of rules for governing the appetites of the people.
There were always simpletons enough to believe that they could be
cured of consumption by taking such nostrums as cod liver oil and
Wistar's Balsam; so also would the world always be pestered with men
simple enough to believe that every man must square his inclinations
to the measure of their own. But one point now remained to be
deliberated upon, and that was how the doctor should atone to the
parson for his damaged face. I, however, soon overcame this, by
suggesting that it would be no more than right, and equally becoming
of a Christian, that the parson accept the doctor's deep regrets in
offset for the injuries he had received in his features. This the
parson, who was not to be outdone in his benevolence of soul,
readily acquiesced in; and thus was saved the trouble of calling in
the aid of a lawyer, who, with no earthly hope of restoring the
broken peace, would have made destructive inroads upon both their
pockets. The two now shook hands, and with expressions of the