Misplaced Zeal
“I was once sent to attend a man who had taken laudanum,” said the doctor. “I hurried to the place and found the would-be suicide being walked up and down the room as fast as they could walk by two friends of his. As they put him down on a chair for me to treat him one of them remarked, ‘Awful glad to see you, doctor; we’ve been walking Jim up and down for an hour and a half. It’s been terrible hard work to keep him alive all this time.’
“I made a slight examination; took my hat and started to go, when one of the pedestrians said, ‘What’s the matter, doctor? Ain’t you going to give him anything?’ ‘He’s been dead for an hour,’ I replied, and left.”