Leaving the ladies in an apartment by themselves, we adjourned to
the patient's chamber, where the dressings and instruments were
displayed in order upon a pewter dish. The operator, laying aside
his coat and periwig, equipped himself with a night-cap, apron,
and sleeves, while his 'prentice and footman, seizing the
'squire's head, began to place it in a proper posture. -- But mark
what followed. -- The patient, bolting upright in the bed, collared
each of these assistants with the grasp of Hercules, exclaiming,
in a bellowing tone, 'I ha'n't lived so long in Yorkshire to be
trepanned by such vermin as you;' and leaping on the floor, put
on his breeches quietly, to the astonishment of us all. The
Surgeon still insisted upon the operation, alleging it was now
plain that the brain was injured, and desiring the servants put
him into bed again; but nobody would venture to execute his
orders, or even to interpose: when the 'squire turned him and his
assistants out of doors, and threw his apparatus out at the
window. Having thus asserted his prerogative, and put on his
cloaths with the help of a valet, the count, with my nephew and
me, were introduced by his son, and received with his usual stile
of rustic civility; then turning to signor Macaroni, with a
sarcastic grin, 'I tell thee what, Dick (said he), a man's scull
is not to be bored every time his head is broken; and I'll
convince thee and thy mother, that I know as many tricks as e'er
an old fox in the West Riding.
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