roleum! You
take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.
Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?
No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a
ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.
That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still,
if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over
Europe."

I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.

"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States,
now."

I hastened to assure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would
cure me, it might come from anywhere.

"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like,
and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But
I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll
have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we
parted.

He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe
he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the
time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American
was right; he certainly meant well.

Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts
as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him,
I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.

Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to
approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old
German songs; it was the volatile principle.

Songs about the Pope and the Sultan

But yet he's not a happy man,
He must obey the Alcoran,
He dares not touch one drop of wine,
I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.

Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on butter till he
raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a
King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song
that, none like it--

He saw it fall, he watched it fill,
And sink deep, deep into the main;
Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell,
He never drank a drop again.

Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in
the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--

Horum scorum suntivorum,
Harum