Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/239

TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER "'You look like a doctor,' said he. 'The king would have confidence in you simply on account of your presence; and, besides, you do know a great deal about medicine.' But I did not go to Persia, and shortly after that I left the island of Cos and gave up the practice of medicine. Later, in the second century before Christ, I made the acquaintance of a methodist doctor—"

"A what?" Mrs. Crowder and I exclaimed at the same moment.

He laughed. "I thought that would surprise you, but it is true."

"Of course it is true," said his wife, coloring a little. "Does thee think I would doubt anything thee told me? If thee had said that Abraham had a Quaker cook, I would have believed it."

"And if I had told you that," said Mr. Crowder, "it would have been so. But to explain about this methodist doctor. In those days the physicians were divided into three schools: empirics, dogmatists, and methodists. This man I speak of—Asclepiades—was the leading methodist physician, depending, as the name suggests, upon