"Oh, yes, of course," replied Gordon, "we want the aqua."

James stared at him as he poured a little red-colored liquid from one of
the bottles on the shelves into the big one. "Now fill it up from the
pump, and put it in the buggy; be sure the cork is in tight," he said to
Aaron.

Gordon looked laughingly at James when the man had gone. "I infer that
you are wondering what 'aqua' may be," he said.

"I was brought up to think it was water," said James.

"So it is, water pure and simple, with a little coloring matter thrown
in. Bless you, boy, the people around here want their medicines by the
quart, and if they had them by the quart, good-by to the doctor's job,
and ho for the undertaker! So the doctor is obliged to impose upon the
credulity of the avariciously innocent, and dilute the medicine. Bless
you, I have patients who would accuse me of cheating if I prescribed
less than a cupful of medicine at a time. They have to be humored. After
all, they are a harmless, good lot, but stiffened with hereditary ideas,
worse than by rheumatism. If I should give a few drops in half a glass
of water, and order a teaspoonful at a time, I should fly in the face of
something which no mortal man can conquer, sheer heredity. The
grandfathers and great-grandfathers of these people took their physic on
draft, the children must do likewise. Sometimes I even think the
medicine would lose its effect if taken in any other way. Nobody can
estimate the power of a fixed idea upon the body. All the same, it is a
confounded nuisance carrying around the aqua. I will confess, although I
see the necessity of yielding, that I have less patience with men's