says to honour thy
father and thy mother."

"Well," I says, "mebby it does and mebby it don't. But HE ain't my
father, nohow. And he ain't been getting no more'n his come-uppings."

"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord," the big man remarks, very serious.
Hank, he riz up then, and he says:

"Mister, be you a preacher? 'Cause if you be, the sooner you have druv
on, the better fur ye. I got a grudge agin all preachers."

That feller, he jest looks Hank over ca'am and easy and slow before he
answers, and he wrinkles up his face like he never seen anything like
Hank before. Then he fetches a kind o' aggervating smile, and he says:

"Beneath a shady chestnut tree The village blacksmith stands.
The smith, a pleasant soul is he With warts upon his hands--"

He stares at Hank hard and solemn and serious while he is saying that
poetry at him. Hank fidgets and turns his eyes away. But the feller
touches him on the breast with his finger, and makes him look at him.

"My honest friend," says the feller, "I am NOT a preacher. Not right
now, anyhow. No! My mission is spreading the glad tidings of good
health. Look at me," and he swells his chest up, and keeps a-holt
of Hank's eyes with his'n. "You behold before you the discoverer,
manufacturer, and proprietor of Siwash Indian Sagraw, nature's own
remedy for Bright's Disease, rheumatism, liver and kidney trouble,
catarrh, consumption, bronchitis, ring-worm, erysipelas, lung fever,
typhoid, croup, dandruff, stomach trouble, dyspepsia--" And they was a
lot more of 'em.

"Well," says Hank, sort o' backing up as the big man come nearer and
nearer to him, jest natcherally bully-ragging him with them eyes, "I got
none of them there complaints."

The doctor he kind o' snarls, and he brings his hand down hard on Hank's
shoulder, and he says:

"There are more things betwixt Dan and Beersheba than was ever dreamt
of in thy sagacity, Romeo!" Or they was words to that effect, fur that
doctor was jest plumb full of Scripter quotations. And he sings out
sudden, giving Hank a shove that nearly pushes him over: "Man alive!" he
yells, "you DON'T KNOW what disease you may have! Many's the strong man
I've seen rejoicing in his strength at the dawn of day cut down like the
grass in the field before sunset," he says.

Hank, he's trying to look the other way, but that doctor won't let his
eyes wiggle away from his'n. He says very sharp:

"Stick out your tongue!"

Hank, he sticks her