Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-08-28
THAT AWFUL ELIXIR.
A Case Where q Chaperone Should Have
Been Given With 1t.

Correspondence St. Louis Republic
The fun they have had at Marasquan, which
is little bit Of a watering place over on tho
Jersey shore, beats anything yet heard Of at the
big resorts. It was all accomplished with DR..
Brown-Sequard's elixir, which you have read
30 much about as phenomenal sort Of tonic,
and Miss Quisby, whom her acquaintance
know as a maiden lady of not less than sixty
years. She is typical old maid with specta-
cles balanced primly on her nose, and curls
dangling, one at . side, in front Of her ears.
She hates men-so she says-but her manner
does not indicate that the aversion is genuine.
Well, she read that the Brown-Sequard dis
covery was being tried with rejuvenating effect
on lots of folks, and by her eager inquiries the
other boarders in the small hotel compre-
hended that she was aching for q dose. At
that juncture q practical joker came for
ward. He got into q discus
sion OF the new medical marvel, and he
the trials with aged or decrepit subjects. Why
not experiment with a normal, healthy, merely
mature person. Miss Quisby was inclined to
agree with him. But would she aid in any ex-
pertinent? Well, te-he! she didn't know. She
might be persuaded. And she was. Barring a
skinny wrist and submitting to hypodermic
injection of nothing but few drops Of clear
water, she believed that she was q downright
devotee Of scientific progress.
1t was a secret between Miss Quisby and the
joker-except that everybody in the house
knew of it, without her knowing they were on
to it. They watched the symptoms, which were
well worth watching. II was just before sup
per that the supposed elixir was injected. At
the table she giggled when the Rev. Abraham
Smith passed the butter to her, and shrugged
her shoulders quite coquettshly when DR..
Oliver Brown spoke to her OF the weather.
Half an hour after the meal, on meeting
young Broker Jones in the hallway she
| Enthusiastically oged him, and few
minutes afterward she winked slyly
at Actor Robinson, when he told
her that she was looking uncommonly WELL
In the evening the boarders assembled in the
parlor for little waltzing, as usual, and Miss
Quisby became rapidly giddy. She waltzed for
the first time in quarter OF century, and, al
she did 1t in the now obsolete style Of 1864. i,
was funny in the eyes of 1889. She called
snugly, but she didn't try to escape. She struck
Jones with her fan real hard, because he told
her she was beauty. She confided to Robin
son d sudden longing of her heart to go ON the
stage as Juliet, and tried some of the balcony
business on him from the veranda while he
stood ON the moonlit lawn. She consulted aside
with Smith to whether, in his professional
capacity of expOunder Of the Scripture and
believing the injunction that lit is not good for
man to live alone" he did not deem her awfuily
wicked for having failed to accept one Of her
many. many chances to marry. Along toward
the end of the evening she encountered the
practical joker himself
''Well, how do you feel?" he inquired soberly.
"Al1 I've got to say, she answered, rather con-
cerDedly, sis that you ought to have given me
a chaperone along with the elixir"