"Who?"

"Doctor—"

The bar-keeper shrugged his shoulders, as he replied—

"Good physician. None better. That all acknowledge. But, if you'll let me prescribe for you, I'll put you all straight in double-quick time."

"Well, what will you prescribe, Andy?" said the gentleman.

"I'll prescribe this." And, as he spoke, he drew from under the counter a bottle labelled—"Mrs.—'s Cordial."

"Take a glass of that, and you can throw your doctor's prescription into the fire."

"You speak confidently, Andy?"

"I do, for I know its virtue."

The gentleman, who had in his hand a prescription for which he had paid five dollars to one of the most skilful and judicious physicians in New England, strange as it may seem, listened to this bar-keeper, and in the end actually destroyed the prescription, and poured down his throat a glass of "Mrs.—'s Cordial."