GOOD DAY, DOCTHER, DARLINT! GOOD DAY.—PAGE 293.
Our landlady had converted the up-stairs sitting room into a reception room and private office for the Doctor, by drawing a heavy curtain as a partition. It was my duty to remain in the reception half of the room to entertain the callers, while the Doctor was occupied in the consultation half, with the patient. Therefore I had a grand opportunity to witness the scene with our Celtic patient, by peeking between the curtains.
The Doctor was fairly paralyzed, and had a ghastly, sickening expression of countenance during the interview.
He made no attempt to speak further.
As she passed out and slammed the door behind her, I opened the curtains and cried out:
"Change Cars for Pocahontas!"
The Doctor began to rave and plunge and swear by note.
He said I had no better sense than to try to make a curiosity of him, and I would make a —— sight better blower for a side-show than traveling agent for a celebrated physician; and that if I had the pluck of a sick kitten, I would have thrown that old Irish woman out, rather than sit there and snicker at her tirade and abuse of him.
In a few minutes a lady of German extraction called. The Doctor was in no very fit condition of mind to go into a state of Clairvoyance.
With the excuse that business was too pressing to take time to do so, he asked the lady to explain her affliction. In broken English she said:
"Obber you don't kan do vat you vas advertisement, I go."
"Well, dang it, sit down, then," growled the Doctor; and placing a chair for her, came to the partition and said to me, in an undertone:
"Now, you blamed fool, if you can't be dignified you had better leave."
"All right, Doctor; but you may need me to throw her out, so I'll stay."
He rejoined his patient and went through with his usual mysterious performances, and said;
"Madam, you are of German descent."
"Yah, yah, das ish so," she answered.
"Your weight is about two hundred pounds," was his next venture.
"Yah, yah; das ish so too," she replied. "How you vas know all dem tings?"
"You are not married——"
"Vas?" she began, almost terror-stricken.
"—— long," he interposed.
"Oh, you mean not married long time, Doctor? Das ist schust right."
"You are twenty-two years of age, and the mother of one child," he next ventured.
"How you vas know all dot?" she asked, excitedly.
"You can be cured, madam; but it will take some little time to do it, and you must take my medicine exactly as I direct you."
"How mooch costen?"
"Twenty dollars for the first lot of medicine, and when that is gone I'll see you again."
She then said:
"Vel, Doctor, I youst got ten dollar. You take dot, und I pay you de undter ten last week."
"Not much," said the Doctor, firmly. "Twenty dollars or nothing."
I then looked in, and calling him to me, whispered:
"Great Heavens! don't let her leave with that ten dollars. Take it; take it quick!"
"Well, but the fool wants to pay the balance last week instead of next week."
"But suppose she never pays? You haven't even told her what her complaint is yet; and it's worth ten dollars to get out of that."
"Thunderation! haven't I told her that yet?" he asked, in great excitement.
I assured him in the negative. He immediately returned to the patient and said:
"Well, I guess I'll let you pay me the ten dollars."
"But, Doctor," she ejaculated; "you no tell me yet where am I sick."
"Indeed I did tell you, and I'll not tell you again unless you pay me."
"Nix, Doctor; I pays no monish till I knows where am I sick," and she abruptly left the room.
Then ensued another stormy scene. The Doctor said if I hadn't called him to me and commenced whispering around, he would have got her twenty dollars, sure.
"But you had better take half and trust for the other half than to get nothing at all," I remonstrated.
"Yes," said the Doctor, still unconvinced, "and it wouldn't be but a few days till everybody would be owing us; and we never could collect a cent."
I saw the utter uselessness and foolishness of an argument with him, and said no more and let him swear it out.
Among other ills that the Doctor claimed to be an expert at treating, was deafness, and we so advertised.
In a day or two an old lady called while the Professor was out.
She asked if I were the Doctor, and turned her left ear to catch my reply.
I answered in a professional manner: "Madam, you are deaf."
"Well, you are right, Doctor, so I am; and I thought I would run in and see if you could help me."
I stepped to the Doctor's instrument case, and picking up some sort of a weapon, returned to the old lady, and stretching first one ear open and then the other, after making sure that she always turned her left ear to me to hear, I said:
"Madam, the drum of your right ear is almost entirely destroyed, and I am certain there is no help for it; but I can surely help your left ear."
