SOMETHING HAPPENS TO LONG GHOST

WE will now return to the narrative.

The day before the Julia sailed, Dr. Johnson paid his last call. He
was not quite so bland as usual. All he wanted was the men's names to
a paper, certifying to their having received from him sundry
medicaments therein mentioned. This voucher, endorsed by Captain Guy,
secured his pay. But he would not have obtained for it the sailors'
signs manual, had either the doctor or myself been present at the
time.

Now, my long friend wasted no love upon Johnson; but, for reasons of
his own, hated him heartily: all the same thing in one sense; for
either passion argues an object deserving thereof. And so, to be
hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment; which shows how
foolish it is to be bitter against anyone.

For my own part, I merely felt a cool, purely incidental, and passive
contempt for Johnson, as a selfish, mercenary apothecary, and hence,
I often remonstrated with Long Ghost when he flew out against him,
and heaped upon him all manner of scurrilous epithets. In his
professional brother's presence, however, he never acted thus;
maintaining an amiable exterior, to help along the jokes which were
played.

I am now going to tell another story in which my long friend figures
with the physician: I do not wish to bring one or the other of them
too often upon the stage; but as the thing actually happened, I must