oss, "The baptizing's
busted, that's sure." Luigi was the only person who had any heart to
speak. He said, a little bit sharply, to the doctor:

"Well, well, there's nothing to be gained by wasting precious time; give
him a barrel of pills--I'll take them for him."

"You?" asked the doctor.

"Yes. Did you suppose he was going to take them himself?"

"Why, of course."

"Well, it's a mistake. He never took a dose of medicine in his life. He
can't."

"Well, upon my word, it's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of!"

"Oh," said Aunt Patsy, as pleased as a mother whose child is being
admired and wondered at; "you'll find that there's more about them
that's wonderful than their just being made in the image of God like the
rest of His creatures, now you can depend on that, I tell you," and she
wagged her complacent head like one who could reveal marvelous things if
she chose.

The boy Joe began:

"Why, ma, they ain't made in the im--"

"You shut up, and wait till you're asked, Joe. I'll let you know when I
want help. Are you looking for something, doctor?"

The doctor asked for a few sheets of paper and a pen, and said he would
write a prescription; which he did. It was one of Galen's; in fact, it
was Galen's favorite, and had been slaying people for sixteen thousand
years. Galen used it for everything, applied it to everything, said it
would remove everything, from warts all the way through to lungs and it
generally did. Galen was still the only medical authority recognized
in Missouri; his practice was the only practice known to the Missouri
doctors, and his prescriptions were the only ammunition they carried
when they went out for game.

By and by Dr. Claypool laid down his pen and read the result of his
labors aloud, carefully and deliberately, for this battery must be
constructed on the premises by the family, and mistakes could occur; for
he wrote a doctor's hand--the hand which from the beginning of time
has been so disastrous to the apothecary and so profitable to the
undertaker:

"Take of afarabocca, henbane, corpobalsamum, each two drams and a half;
of cloves, opium, myrrh, cyperus, each two drams; of opobalsamum, Indian
leaf, cinnamon, zedoary, ginger, coftus, coral, cassia, euphorbium,
gum tragacanth, frankincense, styrax calamita, Celtic, nard, spignel,
hartwort, mustard, saxifrage, dill, anise, each one dram; of xylaloes,
rheum ponticum, alipta, moschata, castor, spikenard, galangals,
opo