He used to accompany his master on his visits
to patients, and one day the doctor said to a sick man, to whom he had
been called, "I know what is the matter with you, and it is useless to
deny it;--you have been eating beans." On their way home, the
apprentice, admiring his master's sagacity, begged to be informed how he
knew that the patient had been eating beans. "Boy," said the doctor,
loftily, "I drew an inference." "An inference!" echoed this youth of
inquiring mind; "and what is an inference?" Quoth the doctor, "Listen:
when we came to the door, I observed the shells of beans lying about,
and I drew the inference that the family had had beans for dinner."
Another day it chanced that the doctor did not take his apprentice with
him when he went his rounds, and in his absence a message came for him
to visit a person who had been taken suddenly ill. "Here," thought the
apprentice, "is a chance for my putting master's last lesson into
practice;" so off he went to the sick man, and assuming as "knowing" an
air as he could, he felt his pulse, and then said to him severely,
"Don't deny it; I see by your pulse that you have been eating a horse. I
shall send you some medicine." When the doctor returned home he inquired
of his hopeful pupil, whether any person had called for him, upon which
the wittol proudly told him of his own exploit.
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