In short, to put the facts into a word, Horace was
the Pylades of more than one Orestes--creditors being regarded as the
nearest modern equivalent to the Furies of the ancients.
He carried his poverty with the cheerfulness which is perhaps one of the
chief elements of courage, and, like all people who have nothing, he
made very few debts. As sober as a camel and active as a stag, he was
steadfast in his ideas and his conduct.
The happy phase of Bianchon's life began on the day when the famous
surgeon had proof of the qualities and the defects which, these no less
than those, make Doctor Horace Bianchon doubly dear to his friends. When
a leading clinical practitioner takes a young man to his bosom, that
young man has, as they say, his foot in the stirrup. Desplein did not
fail to take Bianchon as his assistant to wealthy houses, where some
complimentary fee almost always found its way into the student's pocket,
and where the mysteries of Paris life were insensibly revealed to the
young provincial; he kept him at his side when a consultation was to be
held, and gave him occupation; sometimes he would send him to a
watering-place with a rich patient; in fact, he was making a practice
for him. The consequence was that in the course of time the Tyrant of
surgery had a devoted ally.
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