The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 24, 1901, Page 6

THE SUNDAY CALL ss Publishing : New ¥ World.) P s was ¢ cture triy L, » y would have t we ai times. One thing he my text. He said r know if that Dutch farmer down tt on the river ever learned the Englist guage.” 1 told him that the German Jearn Englich, and eventually bec and a high public official, and the Bisho; seemed relieved and T went aws train and left that part of the c But all that night, on the r thought of ti.e Bishop the German of long 1 was publis acquainted over when he night from a h nt, and t his h COUGM SYRUP Dashed Into at His (Copyright, 1901, by C. B. Lewis.) E , but 5t as they were ready go to bed Mr. Bowser felt a uch of sore throat and an- et wet yesterday and prob- pulled up on the nd let him ou hout \ctually A had my It c er he uld ure m a country w but Charley g world to go 4 along to a where there were al- and we hitched t duck Z out annel shirt ere it would not be seen, made a band- ze for Carlo's foot, satu it with m and r the dog in rial coat and lald him in b g 2 ‘arlo went to sleep. The the Room With the Cat Heels. I think T'll take a pretty cough syrup of mine and suppose it's in the medi- cir t on the sheif?” “Yes; 1 cre the other day," replied M r, “but you've got such a lot of bottl t you must be careful, Better bring it upstairs when &//’}Xfl AND L AUDANUM 'minded. HIS HORSE TROTTED f AWAY DOWN BELOW 2.30 THEY WERE HAV| WHEN 1 LooKk mir after a @ng 1 went around the bend, and while T had half a dozen ducks floating down stream on the water, dead Ora: ly Carlo would world * retricved the ducks, two at a time, asked and for more, but Carlo was out SOMETHING YOU Ther pros nity in saying that any certain “is not worth a tinker's it s0 considered by m expression originated many tinkering or mending vessels’ was much cruder than vears ago, when leaky tin it is now In former times the use of rosin to cneck tke flow of solder when placed on tin was not generally understood—at least by the ¥ou have found it.” When she had gone upstalrs Mr. Bowser brought the chest down from the top shelf of the closet and looked it over. It was not long before he lighted on the cele- brated “Cure a Cold in Ten Seconds,"” rec- ommended to him six months before by 2 traveling doctor and put up by his family druggist, and, elevating the bottle, he took & hearty swig of the contents. He car- ried upstalrs with him a pleasant fecling that his cold had been knocked into the middle of last week, and nothing Inter- rupted that feeling.until he was in bed and sleep stealing over him and Mrs. Bowser said: “I hope you made no mistake about that bottle.” “How could I make a mistake?’ he asked in a dreamy way. “Easy enough. You are very absent- Don’t you remember once tak- ing a tablesnoonful of sewing machine ol in place of a tonic?”’ A doubt entered his mind and he sat up. Two more doubts followed the first and he got out of bed. “What is {t?"" asked Mrs. Bowser. “I've got o go down and see about that Infernal old bottle. T know it isn't possible that T got hold of the wrong stuff, but you've had to mix in and make me won- der about it. - I can almost imagine that I feel a strange taste in my mouth.” He growled to himself as he pulled on his trousers and started downstairs. The chest was on the stand as he had left it, &#nd as he lighted the gas the cat rolled off the lounge and' started at him in sur- prise. “It was the right bottle, of course,” he mused, “and what a fool I was to hop out of bed and trot down here! Here the blamed thing is, and if it doesn't say cough syrup on the label then I'm a’—— But it didn't. As he held the bottle up to the light the picture of a skull and crossbones greeted his eyes, and across the label ran the word “‘Laudanum.” Mrs, Bowser heard a whoop and a rush, and the NG A GREAT TIME, EP AROUND, of the race, and we were in a fair way tc lose our ducks, when my minister, ofter prayerful consideration of the mat- ter, began to take off his trousers. First 1 thought he was going daffy. I thought the strain of preaching and try- THERE WAS My MINISTER UNDER. THE FENCE. THORNDIKE ing to look pious all the time, except when he was out with me, had been too much for him and that his mind w and when I asked him what ing off his clothes for on a public road, he said he didw't care a continental—l think B e i e e R Y CAN SAY WITHOUT BEING PROFANE. roving tinkers. When one of these gen- tlemen of the road found a job, such as mending a wash boiler or other tin house- Fold utensil, he would get from the house- wife or domestic a piece of soft dough. With this he would build a dam around the place where hc intended to put his solder. Inside of the circle thus formed he poured the melted lead. When the metal had cooled he would brush away the dam of dough that had confined it to next minute Mr. Bowser dashed Into the room with the cat at his heels. “What on earth is it?" she asked as he begrn to gather up and pull on his socks and shoes, “I-I've taken ‘poison—laudanum!” he gasped as his teeth chattered and his eyes bulged out. “Then go at once to the drug store for a remedv. How careless of you! Here is your vest. Here's you c it you have taken laudanum you must throw it off at once and then drink a lot of strong coffee.” “Do you—you think I'm a dead man?" he stammered as he got into his coat. don’t stop to ask a single question, but v for your life and I'll go down and get thé coffee ready."” It was half past 10 o'clock. Mr. Bowser hadn’t waited to tie his shoes, put on a collar or button his coat and vest. As he went up the street at a gallop several people asked him where the fire was, and a policeman jumped out from bekind a tree and tried to head him off. The drug store had just closed, but he set the bell to ringing and accompanied it with kicks on the door, and after seven or eight min- utes the druggist appeared and Indig- nantly demanded: “What in thunder do you mean by try- ing to kick my door in?" “I've—I've taken poison!"” replied Mr. Bowser as he staggered in and sat down. “Oh, you have! Couldn’t upset things any other way, and so you took poisen! What was it?” “Laudanum! I—I made a mistake. I thought I was taking cough syrup. Don’t delay or I'm a dead man!” “Probably grabbed up a bottle in the dark and guzzled away. That's the way with most men. I'll give you a strong emetic, but I'm afraid it's going to be a close shave.” The iGea was, of course, to get the patient te throw the laudanum off his stomach, and for the next half hour Mr. the desired limits. ened the heavy The heat had hard- paste and baked it thor- oughly, so it absolutely of no use for anything else. It became one of the most useless things in the world, and there was not enough of it,ge to be worth while carrying to the pigs. Hence the expression, whick was origi- nally intended ta_convey a certain idea, appears to have been retained, while the origin is not generally known. NJSER’S TRIBULATION, Bowser was dosed after herolc measures. The druggist finally announced that the moment of peril had passed, but sent him home to drink a quart of strong cof- fee and advised that he walk up and down for a couple of hours. Mrs. Bowser had the coffee ready, and it was almost a human wreck she gazed at as he entered the house. She hadn't the heart to re- proach him for his carelessness, and when he had disposed of the coffee she helped him on with his overcoat and saw him out on the street. He hadn’t paced the length of the block before he fell in with an old tramp who was looking for lodg- ings in some doorway and who was soon informed of what had happened. He was a rough looking man, but he had a kind heart, and he took Mr. Bowser's arm and said: “All right, cully. T see how it is. Tired with the turmoil of life, you started out to commit suicide, but thought better of it after swallowing a dose. Just my case, exactly, I've tried it rix different times. Easy, now old rosebud! Lean on me, and we'll walk up and down and damn tha eyes of the world in general together.” “'G-way—g'way from me!” Mr. Bowser got up the strength to exclaim. “Never, my consclence-stricken friend, I shall walk with you, and as we prome- nade you can pour vour tale of sorrow Into my ear and be sure of my sym- pathy.” They had been walking for an hour and Mrs. Bowesr had been dividing her time between making more coffee In the kitchen and looking out of the front door, when the thought struck her to take a look at the bottles. There was the cough syrup, and there was the laudanum, but tne latter bottle had no contents. In fact, it was as dry as a bone. As there had been nothing in it to drink, Mr. Bowser could have made no mistake. She ran out at once to inform him of the fact. The tramp was still solicitousty leading him up and down and encouraging him to livs on. Mr. Bows#r heard the news, took it was—for the public road; he was going to go in and get those ducks. Well, I had shot ducks a good deal, and had had all kinds of retrievers, but I had never had my ducks retrieved by an Episcopal min- i » 1 said to him to go ahead, and he did. He was ht, there is no ¢ that if he had .ot torn off the Carlo’s leg. It was late and the water was no Turkish bath, and I could hear Charley shiver frem where I stood, but he waded in up to his armpits and got the ducks and rted for the bank where I was, and he s so tickled he began to sing “Pull for brother, pull for the shore.”” He have got out in time and got dressed before anybody ceme along, only a couple of ducks came flying by and I w the shcre. would GIWWE HMIMm With a Wild Whoop of A SAHAKE BY GEO.W.PECK AUTHOR OF / PECK'S BAD BOY GROWM UP. and that s he @ gave them hoth barrels to wake old Carlo up thought there was he was not in, buggy and came runn with the minister's coat hanging ! and he rushed into the water all, got one of the ducks I had and put his paws on the m der and ducked him under, having a great time wien around and a German far wife and several grown-up gi ber wagon, was coming toward velled to Charley behind a barbed wire rence. wh had time to do, and then the old f stopped to talk with me, the and the girls got out to help water t oxen, and there was my minister u the fence, shivering his younk | At first Carlo lald down under the f in the weeds with his clerical had got his coat out of the water. and then Carlo saw that T had compa \ he brought a duck to me, wagged hi and went back to where Charley was hi ing for another until he had brought the whole seven ducks, and that made girls want to go and ses where Carlo had got them, and I knew that would never & so I told the girls there was a tramp ly- ing by the fence who had evidently been drinking too much, and they stayed away; but the old farmer who couldn’'t speak English, on being told by the girls ab. the tramp insisted on going to see tha hebo, as he suspected it was a tramp that had been at his house and stolen some- thing. How to get Charley out of the scrape I dld not know. The girls went part way to the fence to protect their father if he had any troubls with the tramp, so their backs were toward me. My gun was loaded and I got behind the oxen and fired both barrels in the air and looked up as though I had shot at some fiying ducks. It was all off then. The oxen bellowed and started on a gallop toward home, kicking -and curling their backs, as oxen will when frightened and in a hurry, with their talls sticking up and bellowing. The old man saw the oxen running away, and he and his wife and the girls and some fu e awa friend, w started on a run after them, and I got Charley into some of his clothes, and we hitched up the horse and started r town, Charley shiveging with the 1 and holding the dog on his legs to keep warm. Luckily we got into town a Hitle after dark, so the minister could get into his study without attrac tentlon, and the next Carlo up and went to there was _narley w and a choker collar sermon I could only would look in the pulpit trieving my Aducks weeds under the fen ited my Charley study In the Sot English side-whisker coat, which was a he wrapped around me about our C d 1 an unhung villain before a t c we took a sm but thin now cause . the ” from o “George.” ming o has ruined me a ce tury now I} t of oxen ru o river when here ¥ me along Ky ng it swallow of whatever it and 1 wer Bishop laughing t away la and ther Exultation He Silammed the Old Tlan Up Against a Shade Tree. moment to digest it, and with a wila whoop of exultation he slammed the old man up against a shade tree, picked up the cat which had followed Mrs. Bowser and made a run for the house. She fol- lowed him, and as the door was close] behind her and several other whoops came to his ears the ki leaned over the gate d-hearted tourist ] G mutter: “Why, 1 was about to ke the old coon for a quarter, and here he's gone ani 8ot over it and given me the cold throw- down! Hang a man Wwhen he’s got a good who don't know