After much persuasion, and by the assistance of the female operator, the old lady was seated, and the limb-receiver adjusted. Now the man in the next room began to pump. The old lady was very nervous, and felt for her snuff-box, and while so doing the man was still pumping. Having taken the snuff, her mind again referred to the limb in the box, and the pressure (suction) having naturally increased, her nervousness overcame her, and with a scream and a bound she left the chair and rushed for the door, dragging the receiver, which clung tight to the one limb, rather outweighing the boot and hose of the other, drawing the gutta-percha pipe after her, which only added to her fright, and with another scream for "help," and "O, will nobody save me?--O, murder, murder!" she, like a bound lion, went the length of her chain, and tumbled over in a heap on the floor. The woman rushed from behind the screen, the man from the pump-room, and rescued the old lady, who fled to her carriage in waiting; and doubtless to her dying day she will continue to tell of how narrowly she escaped "being sucked entirely through that gutta-percha pipe--only for her having on a bustle." COUNTRY MISTAKES. A Canadian, of a nervous, consumptive diathesis, went down to Portland, Maine, to consult a physician, and fell in with old Dr. F., whom he found busily engaged in examining some papers. The old doctor heard his case, and hurriedly wrote him a prescription. The chirography of the doctor was none of the best, yet the Portland druggists, who were familiar with his scrawls, could easily decipher his prescriptions. Not so the country apothecary, to whom the patient took the recipe, to save expense, which was something as follows: "Spiritus frumenti et valerianum," etc.; then followed the directions for taking. After much delay and consultation with the green-grocer boy, it was put up as a painter's article, viz., "spirits turpentine and varnish." The first glass-full satisfied the invalid. DRUNK, OR SOBER. A gentleman, knowing the parties in his boyhood, rehearsed to me the following anecdote:-- Old Dr. Gallup, of ----, N. H., was an excellent physician, whose failing lay in his propensity to imbibe more spirits then he could carry off. "Are you drunk, or sober?" was no unusual question, put by those requiring his services, before permitting the old doctor to prescribe. [Illustration: "PUMPING" AN OLD LADY.] [Illustration: A DANGEROUS PRESCRIPTION.] "Sober as a judge. What--hic--do you want?" he would reply. Mr. B., who had been a long time confined to his house, under the care of an old fogy doctor, one of the "Gods of Medicine," with whom all knowledge remains, and with whom all knowledge dies, after taking nearly all the drugs contained in his Materia Medica, decided to change, and sent for Dr. Gallup. "Are you drunk, or sober, doctor?" was the first salutation. "Sober as a judge. What's wanted?" was the reply, omitting the "hic."