Rain, rain, and still more rain! The big drops splashed on the car windows, and on either side of the track were to be seen wet and sodden fields, many of them almost out of sight under sheets of water. They passed through miles of dripping forest, to come out perhaps near the bank of some stream that was filled to overflowing. Once the tracks were partly under water, at a point where a small river had overflowed the banks, and the engineer had to slow down for fear of spreading rails.
It was a dreary outlook, and when they stopped at a station where they could get newspapers, the printed reports of the flood were most alarming.
“Isn’t it ever going to let up raining?” asked Blake, as he wiped the moisture from a window and looked out for a possible sign of a break in the clouds.
“It’ll rain for forty days—or longer,” said Christopher Cutler Piper, in still more gloomy tones.
A passenger in the seat ahead of the comedian turned around, gave one look at the actor, and then, taking a bottle from his valise gravely offered it to C. C.
“Here,” he said, “take some of this. It will do you good.”
“Hey! What is it?” asked the comedian, suspiciously.
“Liver medicine,” went on the passenger, who looked as though he might be a country doctor. “I know what’s the matter with you. You’ve got liver complaint. I’ve had it, and I know just how mean it makes you feel.”
“But there’s nothing the matter with my liver!” protested the actor. “Nothing at all!”
“Don’t tell me! I know better!” declared the other, with emphasis. “I put this medicine up myself, and it’s the greatest liver regulator and revivifier in the world. One dose will make you feel like a new man, and two will almost cure you. I won’t charge you anything for it, either. I hate to see anyone suffer as you do.”