FullReads

“Then you must have found Mr. Johnson.”

“But I tell you, I didn’t.”

“It’s very strange! I can’t understand it. You turned off at the first road to the left, after passing the third milestone?”

“I did.”

“Two tall poplars stood at the gate which opened from the turnpike?”

“What gate?”

“The gate opening into the lane leading to Mr. Johnson’s house.”

“I didn’t turn of at any gate,” said the man. “I kept on, as you directed, to the first road that led off from the turnpike. You didn’t mention any thing about a gate.”

“I didn’t suppose it necessary,” replied the doctor, with a show of impatience. “A road is a road, whether you enter it by a gate or in any other manner. Roads leading to gentlemen’s country-seats are not usually left open for every sort of ingress and egress. I don’t wonder that you were unable to find Mr. Johnson.”

“I wish you’d give me a more particular direction,” said the invalid. “I’m nearly dead now with fatigue; I’ll try once more to find this man, and if I don’t turn him up, I’ll let the matter drop. I don’t believe your medicine will do me much good, anyhow.”

“I’m sure it will help you,” replied the doctor. “I can tell from your very countenance that it is what you want. Hundreds affected as you are have been restored to health. Better take a bottle.”

“I want to see this Mr. Johnson first,” persisted the sick man.

“Get a carriage, then. This walking in the hot sun is too much for you.”

“Can’t afford to ride in carriages. Have spent all my money in doctor-stuffs. Oh, dear! Well! You say this man lives just beyond the three-mile stone, at the first road leading off to the left?”

“Yes.”

“Two poplars stand at the gate?”

“Yes.”

“I ought to find that,” said the man.

“You can find it, if you try,” returned the doctor.

The man started off again.

“Plague on the persevering fellow!” muttered the man of drugs, as soon as the invalid retired.

“I wish I’d sent him six miles, instead of three.”

The day wore on, but the testimonial-hunter did not reappear. Early on the next morning, however, his pale, thin face and emaciated brows were visible in the shop of the quack-doctor.

“Ah! good morning! good morning!” cried the latter, with one of the most assured smiles in the world. “You found Mr. Johnson, and pleasant of course?”

“Confound you, and Mr. Johnson, too! No!” replied the invalid impatiently.

The doctor was a man of great self-control, and, of course, did not in the least become offended.

“Strange!” said he, seriously. “You surely didn’t follow my directions.”

“I surely did. The first gate on the left-hand side. But your two tall poplars was one tall elm.”

“There it is again!” and the doctor, in the fulness of his surprise, actually let a small package, that he held in his hand, fall upon the counter. “I told you poplars, distinctly. The elm-tree gate is at least a quarter of a mile this side. But, to settle the matter at once,” and the doctor, speaking like a man who was about doing a desperate thing, turned to his shelves and took therefrom a bottle of the Universal Restorer–” here’s the medicine. I know it will cure you. Take a bottle. It shall cost you nothing.”

The sick man, tempted strongly by the hope of a cure, hesitated for a short time, and then said–

“I don’t want your stuff for nothing. But half a dollar won’t kill me.”

So he drew a coin from his pocket, laid it upon the counter, and, taking the medicine, went slowly away.

“Rather a hard customer that,” said the doctor to himself, with a chuckle, as he slipped the money in his drawer. “But I’ll take good care to send the next one like him a little farther on his fool’s errand. He’d much better have taken my word for it in the beginning.”

The sick man never came back for a second bottle of the “Restorer.” Whether the first bottle killed or cured him is, to the chronicler, unknown.