"One day a stranger came to our town--a plain, clean-looking, blue-eyed sort of scientific fellow from somewhere so far out in the suburbs of Europe that the name of his country or province has wholly slipped my memory--a mighty rare thing, by the by, and it always galls me when I forget anything. This chap came here to look at coal, or to hammer rocks, or to look for curiosities. Well, he ran up against me. Don't ask me his name--I believe he spelled it S-c-h-w-o-j-k-h-h-j-z-y-t-y-h-o B-j-h-z-o-w-h-j-u-g-h-s-c-h-k-j. One day he asked me to introduce him to a certain Bellevue capitalist. The fellow had pleased me, and I agreed to do the introducing--partly, I admit, to see whether a man that gutteralled his words out of his stomach could swindle one of our own sharpers that talked through his nose. But now came the rub: how was I to introduce a man when I couldn't utter his name? I used to practice at pronouncing that name as I rode around in my buggy, but it was no go. At last the day came when I was to introduce the fellow with a surplus of knowledge, to the fellow with a surplus of cash. That morning I awoke with the worst sorethroat of my life. I felt as if I had two boiled potatoes in my throat. The passage from my nose to my windpipe was closed for repairs, and that from my mouth to my throat was seven-eighths closed. Pretty soon, just from recent habit, I began to practise on the scientific chap's name. Great Scott! I could pronounce it better than its owner could. There were certain grunts and sneezes in the name--particularly one syllable between a grunt and a sneeze--that I suppose no Anglo-Saxon had ever before or has ever since uttered correctly; but they were nothing to me, so long as my sorethroat lasted." Then Castleton rushed from the room; calling back from the head of the stairs, and in tones intentionally audible to every man and woman on that floor of the hotel: "It's coming, sir, depend upon it--the genuine yellow fever--evaded the New Orleans quarantine three weeks ago--three cases at Shreveport and two at Memphis reported--talk, too, of a case in St. Louis. Heavens! but I hope a beneficent Creator will not allow some other doctor to get the first case, when, happily, it shall have reached Bellevue." The last sentence was uttered _sotto voce_, as he descended the stairs. The EIGHTEENTH Chapter