I directed the “Fitifuge” to be given at regular intervals through the day; and then, amidst the blessings of the patient, the congratulations of the family for the wonderful cure I had effected, and their assurances of future patronage, took my departure for home, hearing, as I left the house, the same old lady who had underrated me at my entrance ejaculate, “Well, bless the Lord I didn't die last yere of the yaller janders, or I'd never lived to see with my own eyes a doctor who could cure a body arter the screech-owl hollered!” THE MAN OF ARISTOCRATIC DISEASES. |What a queer thing is pride! Pride, that busy devil that breaks off the point of the lancet, and lets human nature die of the big-head before common sense can bleed freely. Pride, that sticks a pretty foot in a kid slipper in the dead of winter, and the owner shortly in the grave. Pride, that keeps man from acknowledging his error, and makes him a slayer of his kind, without being justified by a doctor's degree. Pride--but enough of philosophy. I have seen this trait of humanity illustrated in various ways, according to the temperament, education, and habits of individuals, and thought I knew something of the various workings of the foible; but until I saw Major Subsequent, never did I know that man could find his chief glory in the possession of loathsome and incurable afflictions. But such is the fact, or rather was the fact, for the Major one day came in contact with rather a familiar friend of mine, whose known liberality is such that he never fails to give his visiters a fee simple to a small plantation. Yes, the Major is no more! he died in my arms, or rather a portion of him did; for my embrace, to have clasped the whole of his frame, muscle, and fat, would have had to be as comprehensive as the recipe for boiling water. Reader! in all probability you never knew him; if twoscore has not been chalked up against you, I know you never did, for I am now an old, bald-headed, wig-wearing Swamp Doctor, and he was buried when my natural hair was long as a Yankee pedlar's remembrance of a small debt due him. Major Billy Subsequent, F. F. Y. O. K. M. T. R. L. M. H. M. A. M. J. O. G. First Family Virginia, Olways Kritical, Major third regiment Louisiana Militia. His mother a Miss Jones of Georgia. Hic Jackson. Yes, here is the grave! “Major Billy Subsequent, here are some friends of mine that wish an introduction to you. Will you rise? You're sleepy! Ah, Billy, you're a grave subject. But my readers are anxious to know you. Read, then, your biography from your posthumous memoirs. You haven't got your nap out yet?” Reader, Billy won't rise, so I'll have to do as he directs, and call upon your imagination to prepare him from the material I shall offer.