Mark Twain tells a story of how a bootblack saved a king. The
king was sick; his trouble defied the skill of all his doctors,
and it seemed as if he must die. The little bootblack knew a
peculiar but a sure remedy for the disease; but how to get the
king to take a prescription from a bootblack was a problem. He
might have gone to the palace doors and pleaded till he was
hoarse without any one listening. So he told his remedy to the
ash-boy, who was older than himself, and the ash-boy told it to
the butcher, and the butcher told it to his wife, and she told
it to some one else, and so on it went, a little higher each
time, until it reached the king’s doctors. The king would have
nothing more to do with them, so they told it to the favorite
page, and since the king was very fond of the page he tried the
remedy just to please him. The king was cured by the bootblack’s
remedy.--JAMES M. STIFLER, “The Fighting Saint.”
(278)
=Boy, A Noble=--See LOVE, FILIAL.
=Boy, His Own=--See FATHERHOOD.