will dose nothing under five
pounds."

"Are you certain that your dose will be sure to effect its purpose?"
asked Woodward.

"As sure as I am of life," replied the old sinner; "one glass of it
would settle a man as soon as it would a dog;" and as he spoke he
fastened his keen, glittering eyes upon Woodward. The glance seemed to
say, I understand you, and I know that the dog you are about to give the
dose to walks upon two legs instead of four.

"Now," said Woodward after having secured the bottle, "here are your
five pounds, and _mark me_----" he looked sternly in the face of the
herbalist, but added not another word.

The herbalist, having secured the money and deposited it in his pocket,
said, with a malicious grin,

"Couldn't you, Mr. Woodward, have prevented yourself from going to the
expense of five pounds for poisoning a dog, that you could have shot
without all this expense?"

Woodward looked at him. "Your life," said he, "will not be worth a day's
purchase if you breathe a syllable of what took place between us this
night. Sol Donnel, I am a desperate man, otherwise I would not have come
to you. Keep the secret between us, for, if you divulge it, you may take
my word for it that you will not survive it twenty-four hours. Now, be
warned, for I am both resolute and serious."

The herbalist felt the energy of his language and was subdued.

"No," he replied, "I shall never breathe it; kill your dog in your own
way; all I can say is, that half a glass of it would kill the strongest
horse in your stable; only let me remark that I gave you the bottle to
kill a dog!"

"Now," thought Barney Casey, "what can all this mean? There is none
of the dogs wrong. He is at some devil's work; but what it is I do not
know; I shall watch him well, however, and it will go hard or I shall
find out his purpose."

As Woodward was about to depart he mused for a time, and at length
addressed the herbalist.

"Suppose," said he, "that I wish to kill this dog by slow degrees, would
it not be a good plan to give him a little of it every day, and let him
die, as it were, by inches?"

"That my bed may be made in heaven but it is a good thought, and by
far the safest plan," replied the herbalist, "and the very one I would
recommend you. A small spoonful every day put into his coffee or her
coffee, as the case may be, will, in the course of a fortnight or three
weeks, make a complete cure."

"Why, you old scoundrel, who ever hear