aning patient to it, and so carried him into
the house, where they undressed him and put him to bed on his face.
"Say, doctor, I'll choke like this," came from the bed in the sick man's
muffled voice, to the lawyer, who was ordering the widow to get some hot
water and provide herself with towels or cotton cloths. "No you won't,
Toner; turn your head to one side," he called. "That's better," remarked
the patient, as he took advantage of the permission, and then
continued: "I'd like ef you'd call me Ben, doctor, not Toner; seems as
ef I'd git better sooner that way." Coristine answered, "All right,
Ben," and withdrew to a corner with the priest for consultation. "What's
the matter?" asked the priest, in a businesslike, unsympathetic tone.

"So, you give me back my question. Well, as the water will be some time
getting ready, and it will do our man no harm to feel serious for a few
minutes more, I'll go into it with your reverence homeopathically. The
root of his trouble is a whiskey back. That accidentally led to a
muscular strain, involving something a little more paralyzing than
lumbago. He has no bones broken in that strong frame of his, but the
grindstones have bruised him abdominally. I hope my treatment for the
root of the disease will be more successful than that of the oriental
physician, who prescribed for a man that had a pain in his stomach,
caused by eating burnt bread. The physician anointed him with eye salve,
because he said the root of the disease lay in his eyes; had they been
all right, he would not have eaten the burnt bread, and consequently
would not have had the pains."

The priest chuckled beneath his breath over the story; then, with
earnestness, asked, or rather whispered: "Will he get well soon?"

"Well enough, I think, to sit up in half-an-hour," replied the doctor of
the moment.

"My dear sir, may I ask you to delay your treatment until I perform a
religious office with your patient? This is a favourable time for making
an impression," said the hitherto callous priest.

"Certainly, Father, only be short, for he is suffering physically, and
worse from apprehension."

"I shall require all persons, but the one to whom I give the comforts of
religion, to leave the room," called the priest aloud.

"It isn't the unction, Father?" cried Ben, piteously.

"Oh, doctor, the boy's not going to die?" besought the mother, at the
boiler on the stove.

"I can answer for his reverence and myself," rep