The Compassionate Physician A KIND-HEARTED Physician sitting at the bedside of a patient afflicted with an incurable and painful disease, heard a noise behind him, and turning saw a cat laughing at the feeble efforts of a wounded mouse to drag itself out of the room. "You cruel beast!" cried he. "Why don't you kill it at once, like a lady?" Rising, he kicked the cat out of the door, and picking up the mouse compassionately put it out of its misery by pulling off its head. Recalled to the bedside by the moans of his patient, the Kind- hearted Physician administered a stimulant, a tonic, and a nutrient, and went away.
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Two of the Damned TWO Blighted Beings, haggard, lachrymose, and detested, met on a blasted heath in the light of a struggling moon. "I wish you a merry Christmas," said the First Blighted Being, in a voice like that of a singing tomb. "And I you a happy New Year," responded the Second Blighted Being, with the accent of a penitent accordeon. They then fell upon each other's neck and wept scalding rills down each other's spine in token of their banishment to the Realm of Ineffable Bosh. For one of these accursed creatures was the First of January, and the other the Twenty-fifth of December.
