Doctor.

"'Nothing,' said I, 'but to raise a laugh on these critters, and make
them pay real handsome for the joke.'

"Well, every bushwhacker and forest ranger in the island thought he
knew where to find four enormous ones, and that he would go and get
them, and say nothing to nobody, and all that morning fixed for the
delivery they kept coming into the shipping place with them. People
couldn't think what under the light of the living sun was going on,
for it seemed as if every team in the province was at work, and all
the countrymen were running mad on junipers. Perhaps no livin' soul
ever see such a beautiful collection of ship-timber afore, and I am
sure never will again in a crow's age. The way these 'old oysters' (a
nick-name I gave the islanders, on account of their everlastin' beds
of this shell-fish) opened their mugs and gaped was a caution to dying
calves.

"At the time appointed, there were eight hundred sticks on the ground,
the very best in the colony. Well, I went very gravely round and
selected the four largest, and paid for them cash down on the nail,
according to contract. The goneys seed their fix, but didn't know how
they got into it. They didn't think hard of me, for I advertised for
four sticks only, and I gave a very high price for them; but they did
think a little mean of themselves, that's a fact, for each man had but
four pieces, and they were too ridiculous large for the thunderin'
small vessels built on the island. They scratched their heads in a way
that was harrowing, even in a stubble field.

"'My gracious,' sais I, 'hackmetacks, it seems to me, is as thick in