ter
fully ascertaining the condition of his patient, "but I'll give you
a prescription that will bring all right again in less than
twenty-four hours."

And so he took out his pencil and wrote a brief prescription.

"How much am I indebted, doctor?" inquired the gentleman, as he
slipped the little piece of paper into his vest pocket.

"Five dollars for the consultation and prescription," replied the
doctor, bowing.

"Cheap enough, if I am saved from an attack of cholera," said the
patient as he drew forth his pocket-book and abstracted from its
folds the required fee. He then returned to the hotel, and, going to
one of the clerks, or bar-keeper, in the office, said to him--

"I wish you would send out and get me this prescription."

"Prescription! Why, Mr.--, are you sick?" returned the bar-keeper.

"I'm not very well," was answered.

"What's the matter?"

"Symptoms of the prevailing epidemic."

"Oh! Ah! And you've been to see a doctor?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Doctor--"

The bar-keeper shrugged his shoulders, as he replied--

"Good physician. None better. That all acknowledge. But, if you'll
let me prescribe for you, I'll put you all straight in double-quick
time."

"Well, what will you prescribe, Andy?" said the gentleman.

"I'll prescribe this." And, as he spoke, he drew from under the
counter a bottle labelled--"Mrs.--'s Cordial."

"Take a glass of that, and you can throw your doctor's prescription
into the fire."

"You speak confidently, Andy?"

"I do, for I know its virtue."

The gentleman, who had in his hand a prescription for which he had
paid five dollars to one of the most skilful and judicious
physicians in New England, strange as it may seem, listened to this
bar-keeper, and in the end actually destroyed the prescription, and
poured down his throat a glass of "Mrs.--'s Cordial."

It is no matter of surprise that, ere ten o'clock in the evening,
the gentleman's premonitory symptoms, which had experienced a
temporary abatement, assumed a more alarming character. And now,
instead of going to, he was obliged to send for, a physician.
Doctor--, whom he had consulted, was called in, and immediately
recognised his patient of the morning.

"I'm sorry to find you worse," said he. "I did not in the least
doubt the efficacy of the remedy I gave you. But, have you taken the
prescription."

"Wh--wh--why no, doctor," stammered the half-ashamed patient. "I
confess that I did not. I took someth