The Yankee In Italy--How To Cure Dyspepsia

One dayns I wns walking along a crowd ed street of Leghorn, my attention was arrested by a singular figure ensconced in the door-way of a fashionable inn. lt was a lank, sharp-featured man ciad in a linsey woolsey, with a white feit hat on [lis head, and an enormous twisted stick in his hand. He was looking about him with a shrewd gaze, in which inquisitiveness and conterapt were strangely mingled. The moment I carne oppo9te to bim, he drew a very large silver watch from his fob, and after inspecting it a moment with an impatient air, exclaimed- "I say, stranger, what timedotheydine in these parts?" "At tliis house the dinner is about five." "Five! why, I am half-starved, and it's only twelve. I can't stand it later than two. I say, guess you are from the States!" "Yes." "May be you carne to be cured of dispepsia1?" "Not exactly." "Wel!, I'm glad of it; for its a plaugy waste of money. I just arrived from New Orleans, and there was a man on Board who made the trip all on account of dispepsia. I as good as told him he was a fooi for his pains. I know a thing or two, I guess. You see that stick! - Well, with that stick Pve killed six allegators! There's only one thing that is a certain cure for dispepsia." "And what's that?" For a moment the stranger made no reply, but twisted his stick, and gave a glance from his keen gray eyes, with the air of a man who can keep his own counsel. "You want to know what will cure dispepsia?" "Yes." "Well then- Speculation!"After this announcement,the huge stick was planted very sturdily, and the spectral figure drawn up to its utmost tensión, as if challenging contradiction. Apparently satisfice! with my tacit acceptance of the proposition, the man of allegators grew more complacent. "I'll teil you how I found out the secret. I was a school master in the State of Maine, and it was as much as I could do to make both ends meet. What with flogging the boys, leading the choir Sundays, living in a leaky-school-house and drinking hard eider, I grew as thin as a rail, and had to cali on a traveling doctor. After he had looked into me and on my case - "Mister," said he, "there's only one thing for you to do, you must specuate." I had a kind of notion what he meant, for all winter the folks had been talking about the eastern land speculation; so says I, "Doctor, I havn't got a cent to begin with." "So much the better," says he, "a man who has money is a fooi to speculate; you've got nothing to lose, so begin this right way." I sold out all my things but one suit of clothes, and a neighbor gave me a lift in his wagon as far as Bangor. I took Iodgings al the crack hotel, and by keeping myears open at the table and in the bar-room, soon had all the slang of speculation by heart, and having the gift of the gab, by the third day out-talked all the boarders about "lots," "water privileges," sites," and "deeds." One mofning I found an old gentleman sitting in the parlor looking very glum. "Ah," says I, "great bargain thatof Jones, two hundred acres, including the Main Street as far as the Railroad Depot - that is, where they're to be when Jonesville is built." "Some people have all the luck," says the old gentleman. "There isn't a better tract in all Maine than mine, but I can't get an offer." "It's because you don't talk up," says I. "Well," says he, uyou seém' to understand the business. Here's my bond, all you can get over thrêe thousand dollars you may have." I set right to work. got the editors to mention it asa rare chance, whispered' abbut in all the corners ihat the land had been surveyed for a manu factu ring town, and had a colored map drawn' with a colored border, six meeting houses,a lyceum, blocks of stores, hay scales, a slat'e' priso'n',' and a rural cemetery, with Gerrytown in large letters at the bottom, and then hung it up in the hall. Befo re the week vías ou(, I sold the land for cash to a eompany for twenty thousand dollars, gave' t'né óld gentleman his threë thousand, and have been speculating ever since. I own two-thirds of a granite quarry in New Ha'm'psnire, half a coal mine in Pennsylvania, and a prairie in Illinois, besides lots of bank stock,.half a canal, and a whole f ndia rubber fact'ory. l'vè been in N. Orleans,buyingcotton & camehere to see about the' silk business, and mean to dip into the marbte linie a littte. í'veever had the dispepsia since I began to eculate. lt exercises all the organs nd keeps a man a goíng like a steañv boat." Just then a bell washeard frotn within, nd the strangerthinkingitwasthe signal