What flag does 'Pierian' sail under?"
"The magpies," said he, with the air of a man that's a goin' to hit
you hard. "It is a spring called Pierus after a gentleman of that
name, whose daughters, that were as conceited as you be, were changed
into magpies by the Muses, for challenging them out to sing. All
pratin' fellows like you, who go about runnin' down doctors, ought to
be sarved in the same way."
"A critter will never be run down," said I, "who will just take the
trouble to get out of the way, that's a fact. Why on airth couldn't
the poet have said Magpian Spring, then all the world would understand
him. No, the lines would have had more sense if they had run this way:
"'A little physic is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or drink not of the doctor's spring.'"
Well, it made him awful mad. Sais he, "You talk of treating wounds as
all unskilful men do, who apply balsams and trash of that kind, that
half the time turns the wound into an ulcer; and then when it is too
late the doctor is sent for, and sometimes to get rid of the sore, he
has to amputate the limb. Now, what does your receipt book say?"
"It sais," sais I, "that natur alone makes the cure, and all you got
to do, is to stand by and aid her in her efforts."
"That's all very well," sais he, "if nature would only tell you what
to do, but nature leaves you, like a Yankee quack as you are, to
guess.
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