Page:Early History of Medicine in Philadelphia - George W Norris.djvu/107

 upon the crown behind, but projectingly and out of all proportion cocked before, and seemingly the impelling cause of his anxious forward movements; his lips, closely compressed (sans teeth) together, were in constant motion, as though he were munching something all the time; his golden-headed Indian cane, not used for his support, but dangling by a black silken string from his wrist; the ferule of his cane and the heels of his capacious shoes, well lined in winter time with thick woolen cloth, might be heard jingling and scraping the pavement at every step; he seemed on the street always as one hastening as fast as his aged limbs would permit him to some patient dangerously ill, without looking at any one passing him to the right or left."

The doctor was an eccentric character, full of anecdote and knowledge; and, tradition informs us, possessed of great sarcastic wit. He was much in the habit of using certain expletives in his ordinary conversation, which, in the opinion of those who best knew and appreciated him, were thought to be neither useful nor ornamental. An anecdote, strikingly illustrative of these points of his character, has been mentioned to me as being well known to those of former days. The doctor happened to be overtaken at the house of a