During the meal he confided to me his plans for the future. He had laid out a route through Butler and Beaver counties to the State line, and thence through Ohio until winter set in. “I make enough in summer to lay hup in winter,” he explained. “It’s an ’ealthy and hinvigorating life, and I like it. I’ve traveled over nearly all the States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, ’ave ’ad my hups and downs, and I wouldn’t change places with a king.” I rather doubted whether the doctor knew very much about kings, that he could afford to speak so positively, but I felt that it would be neither polite nor prudent to disagree with him. “I dare say I shall like the life very well,” I said, quietly. “But--what am I expected to do?” “You’ll be my assistant,” said the doctor, in a lofty voice, as if he was announcing my appointment to a cabinet position. Then he went into details, and explained that I was to assist him in concocting and selling the wonderful remedies of which he was the inventor. This duty included filling bottles, pasting on labels, carrying his baggage, making his fires, and several other minor matters which he could not recall just then. “Ve’ll camp out like this most of the time,” he added. “Hotels is hexpensive, and I never stops at ’em, unless it’s raining or I’m going to sell in the town. You von’t mind that, vill you?” I was more than delighted at the prospect, and I said so. “This man,” I told myself, “is evidently a great traveler, and he is going West. If I stick to him my fortune is made.” It did not take the doctor long to pack up his traps, and, dividing them between us, we journeyed along very agreeably. When we arrived in Butler we went to a hotel, and there, in the seclusion of our room, the doctor manufactured three dozen bottles of the balsam, as many of the toothache drops and twice as many boxes of the tooth-powder. At this distance of time I cannot recall the ingredients of these justly celebrated remedies, but I can cheerfully testify to their harmlessness. The balsam was composed of two or three simple aromatic oils, the toothache drops was merely a diluted essence of the oil of cloves, and the wonderful tooth-powder chalk powdered and scented. The labels for the various compounds the doctor carried in his oilcloth bag, and the bottles, boxes and various ingredients he purchased at the village drug stores. I am almost ashamed to tell you what enormous profits he made on his sales, and will only mention that he once told me that the bottle and label formed nine-tenths of the cost of the Golden Balsam, which retailed at one dollar. In these days the street vender of physic is an ordinary sight, but a quarter of a century ago he was almost unknown outside of the largest cities. After being a month in the company of Doctor Norris I easily understood why he followed such a life. In the town of Butler two days’ sales netted him sixty dollars, and he made nearly as much in Beaver.