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The
straightener shook his head at this, and laughingly replied that the cure
must have been due to nature. After a few more questions he wrote a
prescription and departed.

I saw the prescription. It ordered a fine to the State of double the
money embezzled; no food but bread and milk for six months, and a severe
flogging once a month for twelve. I was surprised to see that no part of
the fine was to be paid to the poor woman whose money had been embezzled,
but on inquiry I learned that she would have been prosecuted in the
Misplaced Confidence Court, if she had not escaped its clutches by dying
shortly after she had discovered her loss.

As for Mr. Nosnibor, he had received his eleventh flogging on the day of
my arrival. I saw him later on the same afternoon, and he was still
twinged; but there had been no escape from following out the
straightener's prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws of Erewhon
are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that his
orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a hospital
(as the poor are), and would have been much worse off. Such at least is
the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it.

On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr.
Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to
watch the completion of the cure. I was struck with the delicacy with
which he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the
physical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness
about my host's eyes which argued a bilious habit of body. To have taken
notice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette.
I was told, however, that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to
glance at the possibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it
important in order to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which
he gets are generally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions
upon the matter as well as he can. Sensible men have been known to say
that the straightener should in strict confidence be told of every
physical ailment that is likely to bear upon the case; but people are
naturally shy of doing this, for they do not like lowering themselves in
the opinion of the straightener, and his ignorance of medical science is
supreme. I heard of one lady, indeed, who had the hardihood to confess
that a furious outbreak of ill-humour and extravagant fancies for which
she was seeking advice was possibly the result of indisposition. "You
should resist that," said the straightener, in a kind, but grave voice;
"we can do nothing for the bodies of our patients; such matters are
beyond our province, and I desire that I may hear no further
particulars." The lady burst into tears, and promised faithfully that
she would never be unwell again.

But to return to Mr. Nosnibor. As the afternoon wore on many carriages

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