"Well, Fitzgibbon, if the boy is so big a fool that he don't know the difference between saleratus and sugar, let him die."
"O, docther, don't say so!" exclaimed the poor fellow, in agony.
Then I suddenly recollected that the sense of taste was always vitiated in measles, and thus excused the matter, adding,--
"Now, run home, 'Gibbon, and give the little fellow a tea-spoonful of vinegar in a little sugar and water,--not saleratus and water, mind you."
"No, by the great St. Patrick, I'll niver mistake the likes again," he earnestly interrupted, when I went on, saying,--
"Then in half an hour give him another tea-spoonful, and that will relieve the 'gnawing at his stomach,' and by an hour I'll drive round there and see him, on my way to Watertown."
"I'll trust to yeze to git it out of him. God bless yeze;" and away he darted, saying, "O, howly mother! that I should give him saleratus for sugar!"
A celebrated English physician, who was also a distinguished humorist, when about to die, requested that none of his friends be invited to his funeral.
A friend inquired the reason of this remarkable request.
"Because," sighed the dying but polite humorist, "it is a courtesy which can never be returned."
Charles Matthews, the celebrated comedian, who died in 1837, put the above entirely in the shade by _his_ last joke.
The attending physician had left Mr. Matthews some medicine in a vial, which a friend was to administer during the night. By mistake, he gave the patient some ink from a vial which stood near. On discovering the error, his friend exclaimed, "O, gracious Heavens, Matthews, I have given you ink, instead of medicine."
"Never--never mind, my dear boy," said the dying man faintly; "_I will swallow a piece of blotting paper_."
Dr. Robertson, of Charleston, S. C., who attended the writer in 1852, with the yellow fever, was as competent, benevolent, and faithful a physician as I ever had the pleasure of meeting. His services were in great demand during the raging of the "yellow Jack," and on one occasion he was absent from his house and office two whole days and a night. His family became alarmed, and a faithful old negro was sent in search of his master. It was no uncommon occurrence to see a black man traversing the streets, ringing a bell, and crying a "lost child;" but to see a slave searching for his lost master, was almost a phenomenon.