in a horse-car, asked him
to send his address to the office, and the aged pilgrim nudged up into
a corner seat, put his valise on the floor and sailed serenely out of
sight amid the reverberation of the oaths hurled by the driver at an
Irish drayman who occupied the track in front of the car.

CHAPTER XXVI.

_THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF DR. PERKINS_.

It might be hardly fair to say that Doctor Perkins, a former resident
of the village, was a quack; he may be described in milder phrase
as an irregular practitioner. He belonged to none of the accepted
schools, but treated his patients in accordance with certain theories
of his own. The doctor had a habit of relating remarkable stories of
his own achievements, and the most wonderful of these was his account
of an attempt that he once made to cure a man named Simpson of
consumption by the process of transfusion of blood. The doctor,
according to his own story, determined to inject healthy blood into
Simpson's veins.

As no human being was willing to shed his blood for Simpson, the
doctor bled Simpson's goat; and opening a vein in Simpson's arm, he
injected about two quarts of the blood into the patient's system.
Simpson immediately began to revive, but, singular to relate, no
sooner had his strength returned than he jumped out of bed; and
twitching his head about after the fashion of a goat, he made a savage
attempt to butt the doctor. That medical gentleman, after having
Simpson's head plunged against his stomach three or four times, took
refuge in the closet; whereupon Simpson banged his head against the
panel of the door a couple of times, and would probably have broken
it to splinters had not his mother-in-law entered at that moment and
diverted his attention. One well-directed blow from Simpson floored
her, and then, while she screamed for help, Simpson frolicked around
over the floor, making assiduous efforts to nibble the green flowers
in the ingrain carpet. When they called the hired man in and tied him
down on the bed, an effort was made to interview him, but the only
answer he could give to such questions as how he felt and when he
wanted his medicine was a "ba-a" precisely like that of a goat, and
then he would strain himself in an effort to butt a hole in the
headboard. The condition of the patient was so alarming, and Mrs.
Simpson was so indignant, that Dr. Perkins determined to undo the evil
if possible. So he first bled Simpson freely, and then, by heav