“Suffocation from Inhaling Smoke or Gas.—There is nothing better than flax-seed. Place a few seed in the outer corner of the eye.”

I shoved the Handbook back in my pocket, and grabbed a boy that was running by.

“Here,” says I, giving him some money, “run to the drug store and bring a dollar’s worth of flax-seed. Hurry, and you’ll get another one for yourself. Now,” I sings out to the crowd, “we’ll have Mrs. Sampson!” And I throws away my coat and hat.

Four of the firemen and citizens grabs hold of me. It’s sure death, they say, to go in the house, for the floors was beginning to fall through.

“How in blazes,” I sings out, kind of laughing yet, but not feeling like it, “do you expect me to put flax- seed in a eye without the eye?”

I jabbed each elbow in a fireman’s face, kicked the bark off of one citizen’s shin, and tripped the other one with a side hold. And then I busted into the house. If I die first I’ll write you a letter and tell you if it’s any worse down there than the inside of that yellow house was; but don’t believe it yet. I was a heap more cooked than the hurry-up orders of broiled chicken that you get in restaurants. The fire and smoke had me down on the floor twice, and was about to shame Herkimer, but the firemen helped me with their little stream of water, and I got to Mrs. Sampson’s room. She’d lost conscientiousness from the smoke, so I wrapped her in the bed-clothes and got her on my shoulder. Well, the floors wasn’t as bad as they said, or I never could have done it—not by no means.

I carried her out fifty yards from the house and laid her on the grass. Then, of course, every one of them other twenty-two plaintiffs to the lady’s hand crowded around with tin dippers of water ready to save her. And up runs the boy with the flax-seed.

I unwrapped the covers from Mrs. Sampson’s head. She opened her eyes and says—

“Is that you, Mr. Pratt?”

“S-s-sh,” says I. “Don’t talk till you’ve had the remedy.”

I runs my arm around her neck and raises her head, gentle, and breaks the bag of flax-seed with the other hand; and as easy as I could I bends over and slips three or four of the seeds in the outer corner of her eye.

Up gallops the village doc. by this time, and snorts around, and grabs at Mrs. Sampson’s pulse, and wants to know what I mean by such sandblasted nonsense.

“Well, old Jalap and Jerusalem oak-seed,” says I, “I’m no regular practitioner, but I’ll show you my authority, anyway.”

They fetch my coat, and I gets out the Hand-book.

“Look on page 117,” says I, “at the remedy for suffocation by smoke or gas. Flax-seed in the outer corner of the eye, it says. I don’t know whether it works as a smoke consumer or whether it hikes the compound gastro-hippopotamus nerve into action, but Herkimer says it, and he was called to the case first. If you want to make it a consultation there’s no objection.”

Old doc. takes the book and looks at it by means of his specs. and a fireman’s lantern.

“Well, Mr. Pratt,” says he, “you evidently got on the wrong line in reading your diagnosis. The recipe for suffocation says: “Get the patient into fresh air as quickly as possible, and place in a reclining position.” The flax-seed remedy is for “Dust and Cinders in the Eye,” on the line above. But, after all——”