remedy. And the invested twenty dollars had brought the shrewd
blacksmith a handsome return.

"Hello!" said Jonas in true Western style, as he reined up in front of
Dr. Ketchup's house in the outskirts of Brayville. "Hello the house!"
But Dr. Ketchup was already asleep. "Takes a mighty long time to wake up
a fat man," soliloquized Jonas. "He gits so used to hearin' hisself
snore that he can't tell the difference 'twixt snorin' and thunder.
Hello! Hello the house! I say, hello the blacksmith-shop! Dr. Ketchup,
why don't you git up? Hello! Corn-sweats and calamus! Hello! Whoop!
Hurrah for Jackson and Dr. Ketchup! Hello! Thunderation! Stop thief!
Fire! Fire! Fire! Murder! Murder! Help! Help! Hurrah! Treed the coon
at last!"

This last exclamation greeted the appearance of Dr. Ketchup's head at
the window.

"Are you drunk, Jonas Harrison? Go 'way with your hollering, or I'll
have you took up," said Ketchup.

"You'll find that tougher work than making horseshoes any day, my
respectable friend and feller-citizen. I'll have you took up fer
sleeping so sound and snorin' so loud as to disturb all creation and the
rest of your neighbors. I've heard you ever sence I left Anderson's, and
thought 'twas a steamboat. Come, my friend, git on your clothes and
accouterments, fer Mrs. Anderson is a-dyin' or a-lettin' on to be
a-dyin' fer a drink of ginseng-tea or a corn-sweat or some other
decoction of the healin' art. Come, I fotch two hosses, so you shouldn't
lose no time a saddlin' your'n, though I don't doubt the ole woman'd git
well ef you never gin her the light of your cheerful count'nance.
She'd git well fer spite, and hire a calomel-doctor jist to make you
mad. I'd jest as soon and a little sooner expect a female wasp to die of
heart-disease as her."

[Illustration: "FIRE! MURDER!! HELP!!!"]

The head of Dr. Ketchup had disappeared from the window about the middle
of this speech, and the remainder of it came by sheer force of internal
pressure, like the flowing of an artesian well.

Dr. Ketchup walked out, with ruffled dignity, carefully dressed. His
immaculate clothes and his solemn face were the two halves of his stock
in trade. Under the clothes lay buried Ketchup the blacksmith; under the
wiseacre face was Ketchup the ignoramus. Ignoramus he was, but not a
fool. As he rode along back with Jonas, he plied the latter with
questions. If he could get the facts of the case out of Jonas, he would
pretend to have inferred t