The Patient and Doctor—The First Interview.

Patient—Doctor, I have got the piles and dyspepsia most awfully. I have taken lots of medicine, and it has made me more costive, and caused my head to ache worse than ever. Now, Doctor, what on earth shall I do to cure me of the piles and dyspepsia?

Doctor—Buy Branch’s Alligator.

Patient—What kind of medicine is that?

Doctor—It ain’t medicine. It is a pepper.

Patient—What kind of pepper?

Doctor—A darn funny pepper.

Patient—How can that cure the piles and dyspepsia?

Doctor—It will make you laugh and cry at the same time, and move your bowels, and it actually gave one of my patients the diarrhœa and hysteric cramps in the stomach last week.

Patient—Where can I find it?

Doctor—At any depot in the city.

Patient—I will try it. How much shall I pay you for your medical advice?

Doctor—Only one dollar.

Patient—There it is. Good day, Doctor.

Doctor—Good day.

Patient—(stumbles going down the steps)—It looks awful cloudy, Doctor.

Doctor—Quite so. It looks like rain.

Patient—Yes, rather. Good day, Doctor.

Doctor—Good day. Call again.

Patient—I will. [Exeunt.]

SECOND INTERVIEW.

Patient—Good morning, Doctor.

Doctor—How do you do?

Patient—I am so weak I can hardly stand.

Doctor—It must be owing to the warm weather.

Patient—No it ain’t. I have been reading Branch’s Alligator, and I have got the dysentery so bad that I fear I shall lose my entrails and die before sundown, if you don’t give me something to stop it. Why, lord bless your dear soul, Doctor, I was up all last night, and have been out ten times to-day. O do relieve and save me, Doctor. Only give me back my piles and dyspepsia again, and I’ll be satisfied. The dysentery is more dangerous than either, and I’m not prepared to die. I joined the Church at the time Awful Gardner and Ex-Alderman Wesley Smith did, but I didn’t hold on, and I am worse now than I was before I joined the Old Dutch Church in Fulton street. Do save me, Doctor, do. O do! All this trouble has come upon me, because you told me to read Branch’s Alligator, which made me laugh so, that my bowels got under way, and I couldn’t stop them. Do save me, dear Doctor.

Doctor—Do you ever read the Herald, Times, or Tribune?

Patient—No. I consider it a sin to read those papers.

Doctor—Why?

Patient—Because they lie and black mail so, and deceive and sell the people, and plunder them, and erect such elegant buildings with their plunder. They never could make so much money by honorable industry.

Doctor—Well, now, you go and buy a copy of the Herald, Times, and Tribune, and go home and read the editorials, and the letters of their Albany and Washington correspondents, and their mercenary Wall street money articles, and read their billingsgate of each other, and their horrible black mail articles, and they will so thrill your blood, as to produce an instant reaction, and you will soon be more costive than before you read Branch’s Alligator.

Patient—I’ll do it. How much shall I pay you for your advice?

Doctor—Not a cent.

Patient—You are too generous, Doctor.

Doctor—Not at all. Those editors ain’t worth a cent, only what they steal from the government, and the politicians, and the people. They don’t make a millionth as much on their paper and advertisements, as they do on black mail. They are the source of all governmental evil.

Patient—Them’s my sentiments exactly. Good morning. Doctor.

Doctor—Good morning, patient. [Exeunt.]

THIRD INTERVIEW.

Patient—Good evening, Doctor.

Doctor—Good evening.

Patient—Well, Doctor, the Herald, Times, and Tribune have cured me. I swow, Doctor, how Bennett, Greeley, and Raymond can lie. I read their fibs, white and black, and their billingsgate of each other, and their abuse of private citizens, and contractors, and politicians, (which seemed like polite invitations for interested parties to walk up to their gilded offices and settle,) until my blood run cold, and icicles formed in my veins, and my zig-zag circulation flew about and rushed from my toes, fingers, nose, ears, heart, and liver, into my skull, until my dysentery was reduced from ten to four times a day; and then I put ice on my head, and a poultice over my navel, and bathed my spleen with brandy, and went to bed, and slept like Rip Van Winkle, and I now feel as well as I did at my birth,—and I have come to express my gratitude, and pay you a standing fee for disclosing the important secret, that I can always cure the piles and dysentery by reading the abominable lies and black mail editorials of the Herald, Times, and Tribune.

Doctor—I am of a costive nature, and never have the piles nor dysentery, and therefore never read those disreputable newspapers; but if I ever should have the cholera, or violent diarrhœa, I should read those public journals for my life, as I have cured dysentery patients for years by recommending the perusal of those journals for only half an hour. And I shall always recommend Branch’s Alligator for costiveness.

Patient—Don’t mention the Alligator, if you please, Doctor, because I fear it will start my bowels, and again set them in a terrible and dangerous commotion. So, good night, Doctor, and may God forever bless you.

Doctor—Good night, sir.

Patient—Remember me kindly to your wife and children, Doctor.

Doctor—I will.

Patient—Good night.

Doctor—Good night. [Exeunt.]

The Doctor closes the door, and Patient skips up the street, singing, a la Bayadere:

Happy am I, From piles I’m free, Why are not all Merry like me?