Physicians Two


  A WICKED Old Man finding himself ill sent for a Physician, who 
prescribed for him and went away.  Then the Wicked Old Man sent for 
another Physician, saying nothing of the first, and an entirely 
different treatment was ordered.  This continued for some weeks, 
the physicians visiting him on alternate days and treating him for 
two different disorders, with constantly enlarging doses of 
medicine and more and more rigorous nursing.  But one day they 
accidently met at his bedside while he slept, and the truth coming 
out a violent quarrel ensued.

  "My good friends," said the patient, awakened by the noise of the 
dispute, and apprehending the cause of it, "pray be more 
reasonable.  If I could for weeks endure you both, can you not for 
a little while endure each other?  I have been well for ten days, 
but have remained in bed in the hope of gaining by repose the 
strength that would justify me in taking your medicines.  So far I 
have touched none of it."