g those who most abuse her. Pray,
take it."

"Away with it! Don't hold it so near. Ten to one there is a torpedo in
it. Such things have been. Editors been killed that way. Take it further
off, I say."

"Good heavens! my dear sir----"

"I tell you I want none of your boxes," snapping his rifle.

"Oh, take it--ugh, ugh! do take it," chimed in the old miser; "I wish he
would give me one for nothing."

"You find it lonely, eh," turning short round; "gulled yourself, you
would have a companion."

"How can he find it lonely," returned the herb-doctor, "or how desire a
companion, when here I stand by him; I, even I, in whom he has trust.
For the gulling, tell me, is it humane to talk so to this poor old man?
Granting that his dependence on my medicine is vain, is it kind to
deprive him of what, in mere imagination, if nothing more, may help eke
out, with hope, his disease? For you, if you have no confidence, and,
thanks to your native health, can get along without it, so far, at
least, as trusting in my medicine goes; yet, how cruel an argument to
use, with this afflicted one here. Is it not for all the world as if
some brawny pugilist, aglow in December, should rush in and put out a
hospital-fire, because, forsooth, he feeling no need of artificial heat,
the shivering patients shall have none? Put it to your conscience, sir,
and you will admit, that, whatever be the nature of this afflicted one's
trust, you, in opposing it, evince either an erring head or a heart
amiss. Come, own, are you not pitiless?"

"Yes, poor soul," said the Missourian, gravely eying the old man--"yes,
it _is_ pitiless in one like me to speak too honestly to one like you.
You are a late sitter-up in this life; past man's usual bed-time; and
truth, though with some it makes a wholesome breakfast, proves to all a
supper too hearty. Hearty food, taken late, gives bad dreams."

"What, in wonder's name--ugh, ugh!--is he talking about?" asked the old
miser, looking up to the herb-doctor.

"Heaven be praised for that!" cried the Missourian.

"Out of his mind, ain't he?" again appealed the old miser.

"Pray, sir," said the herb-doctor to the Missourian, "for what were you
giving thanks just now?"

"For this: that, with some minds, truth is, in effect, not so cruel a
thing after all, seeing that, like a loaded pistol found by poor devils
of savages, it raises more wonder than terror--its peculiar virtue being
unguessed, unless, indeed, by indiscr