* * * "I observed a gentleman in black," said our informant, "who seemed to fix me across the table-d'hÔte, at dinner, in a way which soon showed me I was an object of interest to him. It was very odd! We were not in Austria! I could not have offended the police—nor in Spain, the Inquisition. If I took of a particular dish, his eye was on me again. They did use to poison people in Italy, but it was in the fifteenth century, and all the Borgias were gone! What could it mean? The very waiters seemed to watch the man in black, and signals of intelligence seemed to pass between them as they went their rounds with the dishes. After thus meeting the eye of the unknown at intervals for more than an hour, when the table was beginning to clear, I rose, and limped out of the room as well as my complaints would let me, and was sauntering a few steps from the door, when judge of my terror on turning round, to find him of the black coat at my elbow! "In pain, sir, I see." All my alarm ceased in a moment. It was pure philanthropy which had made me an object of so much interest. "Yes, sir, in great pain." "You should take care of yourself, sir. Rheumatic, are you not?" "Very rheumatic." "Well, sir, you have come to the best place in the world for rheumatism. The air, the water, and proper treatment, will soon set you up." "Your report is encouraging; but I have suffered too long to hope much." "Well, at any rate, sir, let us not talk over your interesting case in this heat. Come and put your feet up on a chair in my rooms, and we will drink a glass of soda-water to your better health." What a kind-hearted man I had met with, and how kind Providence is to us! I now ventured to ask him his name. "My name is Dr ——; and now, my dear friend, just tell me your whole case from the very beginning down to now, for I am really interested in you." I told my case. "Put out your tongue." "Brown," we thought we heard him say. "Wrist—pulse not amiss—but you require care, sir! you require care! Clear case for the medicine I gave so successfully last week." Finding myself thus fallen into professional hands without intending it, I said something introductory to the mention of a fee. "True, I was forgetting that; when one takes a proper interest in one's case, and hopes to do good, fees are the last thing one thinks of—two scudi if you please." So I found myself immediately booked in a small memorandum-book, and constituted his patient. Now came civil promises to introduce me, &c. &c. &c., and I took my leave delighted. It is almost needless to say, that in a very short time I found that my acquaintance had, like so many more, commenced physician on the soil of Italy. What will become of London if all her apothecaries desert her at this rate? For ourselves, reflecting on the accomplishments of many of these patriotic men, their learning, their modesty, their disinterestedness, we have often had a twinge of the philanthropic extorted by the loss inflicted on our native city—she may come to want a doze of julap, and have nobody to mix it!—and have said to ourselves, as we have looked more than one of these worthies in the face, O a?e?? ????a?, ?a??ad?? ?'???sata, ???? ste??ses? a?d???!

One day after dinner a little bit of gold rolled over the table to the doctor, from a bluff-looking gentleman opposite—it was well aimed—"There, doctor! there's your fee; but don't you begin again prating a parcel of stuff to my wife about her complaints—she is quite well—and if you frighten her into illness, take notice, you will get a different sort of fee next time!" All this, half joke, half earnestly, must have been very agreeable to the guests.