d in and about his posada, and of
the character and purposes of those who frequented it, was tinctured by
grave and philosophical doubts. This courteous and dignified scepticism
generally took the formula of quien sabe to all frivolous and mundane
inquiry. He would affirm with strict verity that his omelettes were
unapproachable, his beds miraculous, his aguardiente supreme, his house
was even as your own. Beyond these were questions with which the simply
finite and always discreet human intellect declined to grapple.

The disturbing effect of Senor Corwin upon a mind thus gravely
constituted may be easily imagined. Besides Ezekiel's inordinate
capacity for useless or indiscreet information, it was undeniable that
his patent medicines had effected a certain peaceful revolutionary
movement in San Buenaventura. A simple and superstitious community that
had steadily resisted the practical domestic and agricultural American
improvements, succumbed to the occult healing influences of the Panacea
and Jones's Bitters. The virtues of a mysterious balsam, more or less
illuminated with a colored mythological label, deeply impressed them;
and the exhibition of a circular, whereon a celestial visitant was
represented as descending with a gross of Rogers' Pills to a suffering
but admiring multitude, touched their religious sympathies to such an
extent that the good Padre Jose was obliged to warn them from the pulpit
of the diabolical character of their heresies of healing--with the
natural result of yet more dangerously advertising Ezekiel. There were
those too who spoke under their breath of the miraculous efficacy
of these nostrums. Had not Don Victor Arguello, whose respectable
digestion, exhausted by continuous pepper and garlic, failed him
suddenly, received an unexpected and pleasurable stimulus from the
New England rum, which was the basis of the Jones Bitters? Had not the
baker, tremulous from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained
by the invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic?
Nor had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden
and maternal requirements. Unguents, that made silken their black but
somewhat coarsely fibrous tresses, opened charming possibilities to
the Senoritas; while soothing syrups lent a peaceful repose to many a
distracted mother's household. The success of Ezekiel was so marked as
to justify his return at the end of three weeks with a fresh assortment
and a