"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."