; but one day Patrick undertook to bleed him for
the blind staggers, and he must have cut the horse in the wrong place,
for the poor brute fell over on the accordion person and died, nearly
killing the musician."

"The horse is dead, then? Where is the bill?"

"I'll read it to you:

THE BILL.

Horse-doctor's fees $125 50
Paregoric for cough 80 00
Galvanic battery 10 00
Repairing stable 12 25
Potts' cow, pigs, apple trees and baby 251 00
Damage to door-knobs, etc. 175 00
Louisa's hymn-book 25
Gimlet and injections 15 00
Repairing Patrick's ribs 145 00
Music on accordion 21 00
Damages to player 184 00
Burying six boys 995 00
---------
$2,014 00

"That is all, love, is it?"

"Yes."

Then Mr. Butterwick folded the bill up and went out into the back yard
to think. Subsequently, he told me that he had concluded to repudiate
the unpaid portions of the bill, and then to try to purchase a better
horse. He said he had heard that Mr. Keyser, a farmer over in Lower
Merion, had a horse that he wanted to sell, and he asked me to go over
there with him to see about it. I agreed to do so.

When we reached the place, Mr. Keyser asked us into the parlor, and
while we were sitting there we heard Mrs. Keyser in the dining-room,
adjoining, busy preparing supper. Keyser would not sell his horse, but
he was quite sociable, and after some conversation, he said,

"Gentlemen, in 1847 I owned a hoss that never seen his equal in this
State. And that hoss once did the most extr'ordinary thing that
was ever done by an animal. One day I had him out, down yer by the
creek--"

Here Mrs. Keyser opened the door and exclaimed, shrilly,

"Keyser, if you want any supper, you'd better get me some kin'lin-wood
pretty quick."

Then Keyser turned to us and said, "Excuse me for a few moments,
gentlemen, if you please."

A moment later we heard him splitting wood in the cellar beneath, and
indulging in some very hard language with his soft pedal down, Mrs.
Keyser being the object of his objurgations. After a while he came
into the parlor again, took his seat, wiped the moisture from his
brow, put his han