circumstances always brought him into notice. The horse he had hired was
a piebald, a sweet, quiet animal, warranted a safe support for a timid
invalid. On this piebald did Dumps jog through the green lanes in brown
studies.

One day as he passed a cottage, a face peered at him through an open
window; he heard an exclamation of delight, the door opened, and an
elderly female ran after him, entreating him to stop; much against the
grain he complied.

"'Twas heaven sent you, sir," said his pursuer, out of breath; "give me
for the love of mercy the cure for the rhumatiz."

"The what?" said Dumps.

"The rhumatiz, sir; I've the pains and the aches in my back and my
bones--give me the dose that will cure me."

In vain Dumps declared his ignorance of the virtues of "medicinal gums."
The more he protested, the more the old woman sued; when to his horror a
reinforcement joined her from the cottage, and men, women, and children
implored him to cure the good dame's malady. At length watching a
favourable opportunity, he insinuated his heel into the side of the
piebald, and trotted off, while entreaties mingled with words of anger
were borne to him on the wind.

He determined to avoid that green lane in future, and rode out the next
day in an opposite direction: as he trotted through a village a girl ran
after him, shouting for a cure for the hooping cough, a dame with a low
curtsey solicited a remedy for the colic, and an old man asked him what