PITTS-STEVENS: 

My name’s Pitts-Stevens, age just seventeen years;
Talking teetotaler, professional
Beauty.

ST. JOHN: 

What dost them here?

PITTS-STEVENS: 

I’m come, fair sir,
With paint and brush to blazon on these rocks
The merits of my master’s nostrum—­so: 
                                (Paints rapidly.)
“McDonald’s Vinegar Bitters!”

ST. JOHN: 

What are they?

PITTS-STEVENS: 

A woman suffering from widowhood
Took a full bottle and was cured.  A man
There was—­a murderer; the doctors all
Had given him up—­he’d but an hour to live. 
He swallowed half a glassful.  He is dead,
But not of Vinegar Bitters.  A wee babe
Lay sick and cried for it.  The mother gave
That innocent a spoonful and it smoothed
Its pathway to the tomb.  ’Tis warranted
To cause a boy to strike his father, make
A pig squeal, start the hair upon a stone,
Or play the fiddle for a country dance.
(Enter McDonald, reading a Sunday-school book.)
Good morrow, sir; I trust you’re well.

MCDONALD: 

H’lo, Pitts! 
Observe, good friends, I have a volume here
Myself am author of—­a noble book
To train the infant mind (delightful task!)
It tells how one Samantha Brown, age, six,
A gutter-bunking slave to rum, was saved
By Vinegar Bitters, went to church and now
Has an account at the Pacific Bank. 
I’ll read the whole work to you.

ST JOHN: 
                                Heaven forbid! 
I’ve elsewhere an engagement.

PITTS-STEVENS: 
                             I am deaf.

MCDONALD (reading regardless):

“Once on a time there lived”——­

(Enter Mrs. Hayes.)
                                Behold our queen!

ALL: 

Her eyes upon the ground
  Before her feet she low’rs,
Walking, in thought profound,
  As ’twere, upon all fours. 
Her visage is austere,
  Her gait a high parade;
At every step you hear
  The sloshing lemonade!

MRS. HAYES (to herself):

Once, sitting in the White House, hard at work
Signing State papers (Rutherford was there,
Knitting some hose) a sudden glory fell
Upon my paper.  I looked up and saw
An angel, holding in his hand a rod
Wherewith he struck me.  Smarting with the blow
I rose and (cuffing Rutherford) inquired: 
“Wherefore this chastisement?” The angel said: 
“Four years you have been President, and still
There’s rum!”—­then flew to Heaven.  Contrite, I swore
Such oath as lady Methodist might take,
My second term should medicine my first. 
The people would not have it that way; so
I seek some candidate who’ll take my soul—­
My spirit of reform, fresh from my breast,
And give me his instead; and thus equipped
With my imperious and fiery essence,
Drive the Drink-Demon from the land and fill
The people up with water till their teeth
Are all afloat.