s, appeared, if
anything, impatient of it; and, perhaps, only diffidence, or some small
regard for his feelings, prevented them from telling him so. But,
insensible to their coldness, or charitably overlooking it, he more
wooingly than ever resumed: "May I venture upon a small supposition?
Have I your kind leave, ladies and gentlemen?"

To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to answer a syllable.

"Well," said he, resignedly, "silence is at least not denial, and may be
consent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has a
dear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so,
what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful little
bottle of Pain Dissuader?"

Again he glanced about him, but met much the same reception as before.
Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently to
say, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly
put up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks."

"Ladies and gentlemen," (deferentially fixing his eyes upon their now
self-complacent faces) "ladies and gentlemen, might I, by your kind
leave, venture upon one other small supposition? It is this: that there
is scarce a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his hour
he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan Pain
Dissuader is the one only balm for that to which each living
creature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective.
In short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left,
can ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom to
provide?--Provide!" (Uplifting the bottle.)

What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain.
For just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by a
land-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, the
sole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with story
on story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernous
old gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from that
road, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in the
door-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome that
shot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his
beard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypress
dew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in a
clouded day. In one hand h