leading off to the left?"

"Yes."

"Two poplars stand at the gate?"

"Yes."

"I ought to find that," said the man.

"You can find it, if you try," returned the doctor.

The man started off again.

"Plague on the persevering fellow!" muttered the man of drugs, as
soon as the invalid retired.

"I wish I'd sent him six miles, instead of three."

The day wore on, but the testimonial-hunter did not reappear. Early
on the next morning, however, his pale, thin face and emaciated
brows were visible in the shop of the quack-doctor.

"Ah! good morning! good morning!" cried the latter, with one of the
most assured smiles in the world. "You found Mr. Johnson, and
pleasant of course?"

"Confound you, and Mr. Johnson, too! No!" replied the invalid
impatiently.

The doctor was a man of great self-control, and, of course, did not
in the least become offended.

"Strange!" said he, seriously. "You surely didn't follow my
directions."

"I surely did. The first gate on the left-hand side. But your two
tall poplars was one tall elm."

"There it is again!" and the doctor, in the fulness of his surprise,
actually let a small package, that he held in his hand, fall upon
the counter. "I told you poplars, distinctly. The elm-tree gate is
at least a quarter of a mile this side. But, to settle the matter at
once," and the doctor, speaking like a man who was about doing a
desperate thing, turned to his shelves and took therefrom a bottle
of the Universal Restorer--"here's the medicine. I know it will
cure you. Take a bottle. It shall cost you nothing."

The sick man, tempted strongly by the hope of a cure, hesitated for
a short time, and then said--

"I don't want your stuff for nothing. But half a dollar won't kill
me."

So he drew a coin from his pocket, laid it upon the counter, and,
taking the medicine, went slowly away.

"Rather a hard customer that," said the doctor to himself, with a
chuckle, as he slipped the money in his drawer. "But I'll take good
care to send the next one like him a little farther on his fool's
errand. He'd much better have taken my word for it in the
beginning."

The sick man never came back for a second bottle of the "Restorer."
Whether the first bottle killed or cured him is, to the chronicler,
unknown.

TRYING TO BE A GENTLEMAN.

THE efforts which certain young men make, on entering the world, to
become gentlemen, is not a little amusing to sober, thoughtful
lookers on. To "