“Perfumery was wanted, so I passed the bottles out.  Mrs. Major would take a lady-like sniff and say, ’Dee-lee-shus!  Ha-oow do eeyou lieek that, Ma-JAW?’

“And when de major laid his hands on the right one of the numerous bottles floatin’ in the atmosphere about him he’d hold it a yard off, give a snort like a buzz-saw striking a knot, and after a minute’s silence roar, ‘Ain’t that nice, b-y-y-y GOSH!’ and slam the bottle down.

“It was tryin’ on the nerves.  First place, the way he come out with that ‘b-y-y-y Gosh!’ hit you in the pit of the stomach like standin’ alongside a bass-drum, and it was only a question of time when he slammed one of them bottles through the show case.  So I flagged Hadds for help, and the two of us plied the lady with perfumery so fast that the Major couldn’t get his oar in, at which he cut loose for himself, wanderin’ around behind the counter, smellin’ of every bottle on the shelves.

“It ain’t everything in a drug store has as pleasant a greetin’ for your nose as perfumery, and once or twice, when I looked around, to kind of keep cases on him, I see the Major had struck a shock.  But at last he come across a sample that pleased him.  I saw him swig a good lungful of it, and his mouth opened wide with delight.

“‘Well, I guess you’ll be amused for a while,’ thinks I. So I paid no more attention.

“The next thing Hadds looks up.  ‘Here!’ he yells; ’drop that!  That’s chloroform, you bull-head!’

“The call come too late—­leastways, to work as intended.  The Major dropped the bottle, but he also dropped himself, two shelves, and about six dozen glass jars of everything you ever heard of.  Powers of darkness!  Flat on his back laid the hero of many charges, whilest over his manly form and face trickled cough mixture, Canady balsam, liniment, sugar syrup, castor oil, and more sticky, oily, messy kinds of stuff than I’ll ever tell you.  The worst of it was that a bottle of carmine had landed last in the wreck and, bustin’, flew over everything.  As there wasn’t a dry spot for a rod it looked like the Major had done a turn of bleedin’ at every vein same as the young man we used to read about at school.  In fact it was much worse than that.  It appeared to be the most awful tragedy any one man ever was concerned in.

“Before we got our wits about us poor Mrs. Pumpey see her Major afloat on a gory sea, and without askin’ for explanations she give a loud holler and fainted on our stock of fancy dishes.

“‘Here’s where we make a lot of money, I don’t think,’ screeches Hadds—­he was an excitable person, that Hadds.  ‘Come!’ he hollers, ’help me get ’em out of here!  There’s enough chloroform loose to sleep the bunch of us!’

“We lugged the Major and his wife to the back of the store.  I made a piller for her out’n some rolls of wall-paper, but the Major had to get along as best he could.  There he lay, his little round stummick stickin’ in the air, breathin’ like a wind-broken horse.