The Clarion. Samuel Hopkins Adams
"Do they! Better than your game, I'll bet. Name your own fee, now, and don't be afraid to make it strong."
"I'm not in regular practice. I'm a naval surgeon on leave. Give your money to those poor devils you swindled to-night. I don't like the smell of it."
"Oh, you can't rile me," returned the quack. "I don't blame you regulars for getting sore when you see us fellows culling out coin from under your very noses, that you can't touch."
"Cull it, and welcome. But don't try to pass it on to me."
"Well, I'd like to do something for you in return for what you did for my son."
"Would you? Pay me in words, then, if you will and dare. What is your Vitalizing Mixture?"
"That's my secret."
"Liquor? Eh?"
"Some."
"Morphine?"
"A little."
"And the rest syrup and coloring matter, I suppose. A fine vitalizer!"
"It gets the money," retorted the other.
"And your soothing, balmy oils for cancer? Arsenious acid, I suppose, to eat it out?"
"What if it is? As well that as anything else—for cancer."
"Humph! I happened to see a patient you'd treated, two years ago, by that mild method. It wasn't cancer at all; only a benign tumor. Your soothing oils burned her breast off, like so much fire. She's dead now."
"Oh, we all make mistakes."
"But we don't all commit murder."
"Rub it in, if you like to. You can't make me mad. Just the same, if it wasn't for what you've done for Boyee—"
"Well, what about 'Boyee'?" broke in his persecutor quite undisturbed. "He seems a perfectly decent sort of human integer."
The bold eyes shifted and softened abruptly. "He's the big thing in my life."
"Bringing him up to the trade, eh?"
"No, damn you!"
"Damn me, if you like. But don't damn him. He seems to be a bit too good for this sort of thing."
"To tell you the truth," said the other gloomily, "I was going to quit at the end of this year, anyway. But I guess this ends it now. Accidents like this hurt business. I guess this closes my tour."
"Is the game playing out?"
"Not exactly! Do you know what I took out of this town last night? One hundred and ten good dollars. And to-morrow's consultation is good for fifty more. That 'spiel' of mine is the best high-pitch in the business."
"High-pitch?"
"High-pitching," explained the quack, "is our term for the talk, the patter. You can sell sugar pills to raise the dead with a good-enough high-pitch. I've done it myself—pretty near. With a voice like mine, it's a shame to drop it. But I'm getting tired. And Boyee ought to have schooling. So, I'll settle down and try a regular proprietary trade with the Mixture and some other stuff I've got. I guess I can make printer's ink do the work. And there's millions in it if you once get a start. More than you can say of regular practice. I tried that, too, before I took up itinerating." He grinned. "A midge couldn't have lived on my receipts. By the way," he added, becoming grave, "what was your game in cutting in on my 'spiel'?"
"Just curiosity."
"You ain't a government agent or a medical society investigator?"
The physician pulled out a card and handed it over. It read, "Mark Elliot, Surgeon, U.S.N."
"Don't lose any sleep over me," he advised, then went to open the outer door, in response to a knock.
A spectacled young man appeared. "They told me Professor Certain was here," he said.
"What is it?" asked the quack.
"About that stabbing. I'm the editor of the weekly 'Palladium.'"
"Glad to see you, Mr. Editor. Always glad to see the Press. Of course you won't print anything about this affair?"
The visitor blinked. "You wouldn't hardly expect me to kill the story."
"Not? Does anybody else but me give you page ads.?"
"Well, of course, we try to favor our advertisers," said the spectacled one nervously.
"That's business! I'll be coming around again next year, if this thing is handled right, and I think my increased business might warrant a double page, then."
"But the paper will have to carry something about it. Too many folks saw it happen."
"Just say that a crazy man tried to interrupt the lecture of Professor Andrew Leon Certain, the distinguished medical savant, and was locked up by the authorities."
"But the knifing. How is the boy?"
"Somebody's been giving you the wrong tip. There wasn't any knife," replied the Professor with a wink. "You may send me two hundred and fifty copies of the paper. And, by the way, do what you can to get that poor lunatic off easy, and I'll square the bills—with commission."
"I'll see the Justice first thing in the morning," said the editor with enthusiasm. "Much obliged, Professor Certain. And the article will be all right. I'll show you a proof. It mightn't be a bad notion for you to drop in at the jail with me, and see Neal, the man that stab—that interrupted the meeting, before he gets talking with any one else."
"So it mightn't. But what about my leaving, now?" Professor Certain asked of the physician.
"Go ahead. I'll keep watch."
Shortly after the itinerant had gone out with the exponent of free and untrammeled journalism, the boy awoke and looked about with fevered anxiety for his father. The little nurse was beside him at once.
"You mustn't wiggle around," she commanded. "Do you want a drink?"
Gratefully he drank the water which she held to his lips.
"Where's my Dad?" he asked.
"He's gone out. He'll come back pretty soon. Lie down."
He sank back, fixing his eyes upon her. "Will you stay with me till he comes?"
She nodded. "Does it hurt you much?" Her cool and tiny fingers touched his forehead, soothingly. "You're very hot. I think you've got a little fever."
"Don't take your hand away." His eyes closed, but presently opened again. "I think you're very pretty," he said shyly.
"Do you? I like to have people think I'm pretty. Uncle Guardy scolds me for it. Not really, you know, but just pretending. He says I'm vain."
"Is that your uncle, the gentleman that fixed my arm?"
"Yes. I call him Uncle Guardy because he's my guardian, too."
"I like him. He looks good. But I like you better. I like you a lot."
"Everybody does," replied the girl with dimpling complacency. "They can't help it. It's because I'm me!"
For a moment he brooded. "Am I going to die?" he asked quite suddenly.
"Die? Of course not."
"Would you be sorry if I did?"
"Yes. If you died you couldn't like me any more. And I want everybody to like me and think me pretty."
"I'm glad I'm not. It would be tough on Dad."
"My Uncle Guardy thinks your father is a bad man," said the fairy, not without a spice of malice.
Up rose the patient from his pillow. "Then I hate him. He's a liar. My Dad is the best man in the world." A brighter hue than fever burnt in his cheeks, and his hand went to his shoulder.