est 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, opoponax,
anacardium, mastich, brimstone, peony, eringo, pulp of dates, red and
white hermodactyls, roses, thyme, acorns, pennyroyal, gentian, the bark
of the root of mandrake, germander, valerian, bishop's-weed, bayberries,
long and white pepper, xylobalsamum, carnabadium, macedonian, parsley
seeds, lovage, the seeds of rue, and sinon, of each a dram and a half; of
pure gold, pure silver, pearls not perforated, the blatta byzantina, the
bone of the stag's heart, of each the quantity of fourteen grains of
wheat; of sapphire, emerald and jasper stones, each one dram; of
hazel-nuts, two drams; of pellitory of Spain, shavings of ivory, calamus
odoratus, each the quantity of twenty-nine grains of wheat; of honey or
sugar a sufficient qua