The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-02
TIE DOCTORS WAIT1NG-RooM.

In the Doctors Waiting room is the title of
a Saturday Revteao article written in the tone
which has made that newspaper famous.
After describing the ante-room and its occu-
pants-the opulent, rubicund banker, the
young fashionable with his eye-glass, the
Sister of Mercy, the London parson, the
young husband and wife nervously watching
q wailing child, the retiring governess, and
the rest of the patients, the odd things about
whom is that 'they look we'll as we'll
, people can look"-the writer speculates upon
the books on the tables; wondering whether
they are or are not the bequests of patients
suffering under various forms of mental
disease
''There is Book of Beauty There is
book of sermons. There is copy of Brights
speeches. A treatise on Gout lies on the top
of a much-thumbed volume of the Idyls.
Beside them lies the second volume of the
last fashionable novel Across the table,
bound in green and gold, is the Shorn Lamb,
or Christian Resignation, a present from the
authoress, The parson is deep in the book
of Sermons. The governess has been trying
the Shorn Lamb, and has put it down. The
rubicund banker is turning over volume
with Dore's illustrations, and muttering from
time to time Insane, quito insane For our
own part we seize the Golden Treasury and
plunge into Alexander's Feast. But not
even the genius of Dryden can charm
away the tedium of such morning as this.
There is general air of fidgetiness, of impa-
tienee about the room. The exquisite has
given up drumming on the window, and is
pensively contemplating his boots. The man
of business has twice compared his watch in
a quarrelsome sort of way with the clock.
The old stager, accustomed to the ways of
waiting-rooms, sleeps lightly, awakening with
gleam of hope at each opening of the door.
One after another disappears, and yet
the room seems just as full as before.
The banker slams his Dore, and wants to know
what is the good of an engagement if one
is kept waiting the whole morning. The
portly mamma rings the bell to inquire when
the doctor will really be able to attend to
her suffering daughter. The governess looks
nervously at her watch, as if it were nearly
the hour for her pupil The Sister of Mercy
has put her Book of Hours in her pocket,
and looks as if she were secretly telling her
beads. Every head goes up when the door
opens, and everybody looks very angry at
succession, indeed, bitter suspicious begin to
prevail. 1t is darkly limited that the digni-
fed servant in whose hands are our desti-
MES is accessible to bribes The
suspicion becomes a revolt when the fashion
able young fellow, after an interview with
that functionary, is promised to see the
doctor next The Girl Of the Season rises
with majesty, and thinks we may as we'll go
home A portly person, with a massive
watch chain, dashes down the Daily Tele-
graph, end denounces with energy the system
of favoritism. All glare at the dignifed
servant, and the dignifed servant awith q
bold indifference toSprobablities, promises
each remonstrant that the doctor will see him
in few minutes. The third repetition of
this assurance is received with general deri-
sion. The man with the watch-ohain points
Indignantly to the undeniable evidence of the
clock. The Sister of Mercy fixes stony eye
upon the imperturbable functionary, and
moves her lips energetically, as if praying
for him. The old stager simply wakes up
quietly again. it is at that moment of gene
raj insurrection that the finger of the bland
functionary points to my remote corner, and
find there is an end even to waiting for the
doctor"