ed from Jersey, and as fast as Adams
& Co.'s great Express to San Francisco could take them out, _the
persimmons went!_

Counsellor Bunker, relying upon his friends to forward without delay the
tools and remedial agents to make his fortune in the pill business, went
to work, got him an office, changed his name, and added an M. D. to it,
had a sign painted, advertised his shop, and informed the public that on
such a time he would open, and guarantee to cure all ills, from lumbago
to liver complaint, from toothache to lock-jaw, spring fever to yaller
janders, and in his enthusiasm, he sat down with a ream of paper, to
count up the profits, and calculate the time it would take to get his
pile of gold dust and start for home.

The day arrived that Doctor Phlebotonizem was to open, and he found
customers began to _call_, and sure enough, in comes a large keg, direct
through from the States, to his address; the freight bill on it was
pretty considerable, but Joe out and paid it, rejoicing to think that
now he was all right, and that if the proprietors of gold dust and the
lumbago, or any of the various ills set forth in his catalogue of human
woes, had spare change, he would soon find them out. He closed his door,
opened his cask--

"What in the name of everlasting sin and misery is this?" was the first
_burst_, upon feeling the fine saw dust, and seeing, nicely packed, the
green and purple, round and glossy--he couldn't tell what.

"Pills? No, good gracious, they can't be _pills_--smell queer--some
mistake--can't be any mistake--my name on the cask--(tastes one of the
'article')--O! by thunder! (tastes again)--I'm blasted, they (tastes
again) are, by Jove, _persimmons!_ Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ho! ho! he! he!
ha! ha! ha!"

And the ex-counsellor of modern law roared until he grew livid in the
face.

"I see--ha! ha! I see; they have misunderstood every line I wrote them,
except the last, and that--ha! ha! ha!--for my direction to send out my
stuff _per Simmons_, they send me PERSIMMONS! Ha! ha! ha! ho! ho!"

But, after enjoying the _fun_ of the matter, ex-counsellor Bunker
discovered the thing was nothing to laugh at; _patients_ were at the
door--if he did not soon prescribe for their cases, his now numerous
creditors would prescribe for him! What was to be done? Very dull and
prosy people often become enterprising and imaginative, to a wonderful
degree, when put to their trumps. This philosophical fact applied to
ex-coun