stinging sarcasm. Then laugh the little boys around the prison door,
and the wag goes chuckling away. The apothecary would fain retaliate,
but all his quips and repartees, and sharp and facetious fancies, once
so abundant, seem to have been transferred from himself to the sluggish
brains of his enemies. While endeavoring to condense his whole
intellect into one venomous point, in readiness for the next assailant,
he is interrupted by the entrance of the turnkey with the prison fare of
Indian bread and water. With these dainties we leave him.

When the turmoil of the Revolution had subsided, and the authority of
William and Mary was fixed on a quiet basis throughout the colonies, the
deposed governor and some of his partisans were sent home to the new
court, and the others released from imprisonment. The New Englanders,
as a people, are not apt to retain a revengeful sense of injury, and
nowhere, perhaps, could a politician, however odious in his power, live
more peacefully in his nakedness and disgrace. Dr. Builivant returned
to his former occupation, and spent rather a desirable old age. Through
he sometimes hit hard with a jest, yet few thought of taking offence;
for whenever a man habitually indulges his tongue at the expense of all
his associates, they provide against the common annoyance by tacitly
agreeing to consider his sarcasms as null and void. Thus for many
years, a gray old man with a stoop in his gait, he continued to sweep
out his shop at eight o'clock in summer mornings, and nine in the
winter, and to waste whole hours in idle talk and irreverent merriment,
making it his glory to raise the laughter of silly people, and his
delight to sneer at them in his sleeve. At length, one pleasant day,
the door and shutters of his establishment kept closed from sunrise till
sunset, and his cronies marvelled a moment, and passed on; a week after,
the rector of King's Chapel said the death-rite over Dr. Bullivant; and
within the month a new apothecary, and a new stock of drugs and