"No, certainly not," replied the woman, somewhat indignantly.
"Oh! well, then it will pass, of course," said Uncle Abe.
It is hardly necessary to add that the anxious mother went home comforted and that the boy who "swallowed the penny," at the last Presidentia-election voted for "Honest Old Abe."
The Wrong Man Poulticed.
At the famous watering place, of the Blue Lick Springs, Uncle Abe was severely afflicted with a pain in the stomach, which neither gin cock-tails nor other cordials could remove. It was night and he was in bed. His loving wife, unwilling to awake the domestics, descended to the kitchen, and prepared mustard poultice, which she spread on her own handkerchief, and proceeded with it to the distressed Uncle Abe. Before leaving him, she left a light dimly burning in the apartment; but deeply impressed with anxiety, she was not as careful as she might have been in noting the number of her room.
Guided by a light which she saw shining in a chamber, and which she supposed was the one she had left, she entered, and gently raising the bed clothes, &c., laid the warm poultice upon a stomach but not the stomach of Uncle Abe.
"Hello there! What the ———— are you about?" shouted a voice of thunder, and the body and sleeves? whence it issued, sprang out of bed.
The lady screamed and ran; Uncle Abe rushed to the rescue from the next room, the waiters joined and a small scene ensued, much to the amusement of all concerned. The poulticed gentleman had indiscreetly left a light in his room, and this lured the lady from her path.