A concert took place one evening, and was largely attended, every seat in the building being occupied. The local amateur tenor—the microbe of this malady has not yet been discovered—sang with his accustomed throaty incorrectness, and immediately afterwards there was a considerable interval. Then the conductor appeared upon the platform and said that an unfortunate accident had happened to the gentleman who had just sung, and he should feel greatly obliged if any medical gentleman who might chance to be present would kindly come round to the retiring room.
It seemed to me that the audience rose en masse and trooped round to the retiring room. I was one of the few persons who remained in the hall.
“Say, why didn’t some strong man throw himself between the audience and the door?” a stranger shouted across the hall to me in an American accent.
“With what object?” I shouted back.
“Wal,” said the stranger, “I opine that if this community is subject to such visitations as we have just had from that gentleman who sang last, his destruction should be made a municipal affair.”
“We know what we’re about,” said I. “How would you like to look up and find two hundred and forty-seven fully qualified medical men standing by your bed-side.”
“Not much,” said he.
“I wonder if the story of the opossum that was up a gum tree, and begged a military man beneath not to fire, as he would come down, had reached the States before you left,” said I.
He said he hadn’t heard tell of it.
“Well,” said I, “there was an opossum——”