MRS. PARTINGTON AND PATENT MEDICINES.
“I 'M shore's he 's very kind,” said Mrs. Partington,
as she took out of its wrapper a box of “Hallelujah
Pills,” accompanied with the request that she should
take them for the sake of old friendship — the agent
being an early acquaintance of hers. “He 's very kind,
but taking them is another thing, though they are good
for all the ails that are impertinent to the flesh, double
X inclusible. O, what malefactors these medicine men
are to the human family, to be sure! I remember a
pictorial expectant once that brought up a whole family
of children, and entirely cured a gentleman who had
been troubled for a great while with a periodical depot.
Depend upon it, sir,” continued she, addressing old
Roger, “there 's so much virtue in 'em that everybody
will be made virtuous, and everybody be made over
again new, and there 'll be no excuse for dying at all.”
The old lady put the box of pills up on the top shelf,
out of Ike's way, lest he should take them by mistake,
as he often did the preserved damsons. “They 're
doubtless purgatory,” said she, getting down out of the
chair in which she had stood. — “Worse than that, I dare
say,” said Roger, buttoning up his coat; “for I smelt
sulphur in them.” He went out, and she wondered
what he meant.
