Dr. Ketchup had been a blacksmith, but bard work disagreed with his constitution.  He felt that he, was made for something better than shoeing horses.  This ambitious thought was first suggested to him by the increasing portliness of his person, which, while it made stooping over a horse’s hoof inconvenient, also impressed him with the fact that his aldermanic figure would really adorn a learned profession.  So he bought one of those little hand-books which the founder of the Thomsonian system sold dirt-cheap at twenty dollars apiece, and which told how to cure or kill in every case.  The owners of these important treasures of invaluable information were under bonds not to disclose the profound secrets therein contained, the fathomless wisdom which taught them how to decide in any given case whether ginseng or a corn-sweat was the required remedy.  And the invested twenty dollars had brought the shrewd blacksmith a handsome return.

“Hello!” said Jonas in true Western style, as he reined up in front of Dr. Ketchup’s house in the outskirts of Brayville.  “Hello the house!” But Dr. Ketchup was already asleep.  “Takes a mighty long time to wake up a fat man,” soliloquized Jonas.  “He gits so used to hearin’ hisself snore that he can’t tell the difference ‘twixt snorin’ and thunder.  Hello!  Hello the house!  I say, hello the blacksmith-shop!  Dr. Ketchup, why don’t you git up?  Hello!  Corn-sweats and calamus!  Hello!  Whoop!  Hurrah for Jackson and Dr. Ketchup!  Hello!  Thunderation!  Stop thief!  Fire!  Fire!  Fire!  Murder!  Murder!  Help!  Help!  Hurrah!  Treed the coon at last!”

This last exclamation greeted the appearance of Dr. Ketchup’s head at the window.

“Are you drunk, Jonas Harrison?  Go ’way with your hollering, or I’ll have you took up,” said Ketchup.

“You’ll find that tougher work than making horseshoes any day, my respectable friend and feller-citizen.  I’ll have you took up fer sleeping so sound and snorin’ so loud as to disturb all creation and the rest of your neighbors.  I’ve heard you ever sence I left Anderson’s, and thought ’twas a steamboat.  Come, my friend, git on your clothes and accouterments, fer Mrs. Anderson is a-dyin’ or a-lettin’ on to be a-dyin’ fer a drink of ginseng-tea or a corn-sweat or some other decoction of the healin’ art.  Come, I fotch two hosses, so you shouldn’t lose no time a saddlin’ your’n, though I don’t doubt the ole woman’d git well ef you never gin her the light of your cheerful count’nance.  She’d git well fer spite, and hire a calomel-doctor jist to make you mad.  I’d jest as soon and a little sooner expect a female wasp to die of heart-disease as her.”

[Illustration:  “FIRE!  MURDER!!  HELP!!!”]

The head of Dr. Ketchup had disappeared from the window about the middle of this speech, and the remainder of it came by sheer force of internal pressure, like the flowing of an artesian well.