Also, when a guest at the Stratford hotel in Kansas City, Dr. Pickerel, of the Stratford, went with me to the University Hospital early one morning. He said he would sit awhile in the lobby and he would spot the surgeons as they came in. I passed three of them, trying to get my nerves settled.
The fourth one was more in general appearance to my idea of what a good surgeon should look like. He was called—and we went up stairs to a room. On examination, Dr. Jabes Jackson, Kansas City’s top-notch surgeon, said I was just right for the operation. I asked him what would be his charge? He said, “One thousand dollars!” I told him that I would have to be a lot sicker before I would think of giving up a thousand dollars. Then, Dr. Pickerel said, “He doesn’t come under that class, doctor.” Dr. Jabes then said, “Three hundred—that’s the lowest.”
Again, while at the Byram hotel in Atchison I had a severe attack in the night—and believed that the time had come when I should have the old appendix taken out. I called for Atchison’s foremost surgeon. He was in Kansas City, but would be back at one o’clock. I went up to the Atchison hospital in the forenoon, asked for a little “home” treatment. In bed, the nurse felt my “tummy,” shook her head, and said, “You will have to wait for your doctor.” The doctor said I could have the caster oil and an enema—but he told the nurse I was to have no breakfast. In the morning, I was feeling pretty good and was about out of the notion of having the operation. However, I asked the doctor what would be his charge? He said, “You are most too weak to stand it now. Come back in a week—we’ll talk it over then.” One week later, the doctor said, “Owing to your long residence in the state, and your standing in the community, I’ll do it for five hundred dollars.” I recalled that our old Nemaha County reliable had done the job for one of my friends for a very reasonable fee, and also remembered that he had charged others less reasonable. I said, “If and when the time comes, I’ll just give you $150.” He said, “I’ll do it—but if you ever tell anybody, I’ll kick your butt all over town.” You may know that we were on quite intimate terms, having on earlier occasions met at Atchison’s friendly club—or he wouldn’t have dared to talk to me like that.
Back in my home again, after enthusiastically discussing the likely prospect of the new oil field. Doctor Shaffer went out on the street to mingle with his boys, and the prospects who were now coming in from as far away as Holton, Circleville, Soldier, Corning, Goff, Netawaka, Whiting, Sabetha, and intervening farms—including my long-time friend Tommy Evans, whose farm north of Capioma had the reputation of being the best kept and most productive in the neighborhood—saying he (the doctor) would be back soon. My wife said, “It looked like your promoter friends have all ready unintentionally cut you in on the big melon should you be mindful to follow up the lead—and wish to be bothered with the Trusteeship.” She laughed, “If you don’t make that Doctor Shaffer cut you in for a generous slice you are not as smart as I think you are.”
Well, maybe I needed this tip—and maybe I didn’t.
Doctor Shaffer came back, and without more preliminaries, proposed to cut me in for two units ($250) if I would prepare him two copies in blank, of the agreement I had cooked up for the home syndicate, and, incidentally, permit Cortner and Purdum to make good on their promise to the subscribers that I would be the Trustee. He said they were expecting it, and desired to have my acceptance before going into the meeting. Thus, I wouldn’t rightly know to whom I was indebted for the generous slice of the melon.
Or was it a melon?
I suspect it was as Myrtle had said, unintentionally cooked up by the two solicitors—and that, in its final phase, it was a joint settlement, with the solicitors having to kick back a portion of their rake-off. Anyway, it was more unsolicited grapes for me—twice over the $4.50 a line, or 45 cents a word for the original draft. I used a carbon and made the two new copies at once, while Doctor Shaffer waited. He had another sale on with a Missouri group.
Fifty-three subscribers crowded into the City Hall, and all signed the agreement, and each set down the amount of his subscription opposite his name—and all wrote checks. At the finish I had fifty-three checks totaling $8,000—my own check for $250, and Doctor Shaffer’s check for $1,000, included. Doctor Shaffer would reimburse me for this $250 and also pay me the $125 promised by Charley Cortner. I was instructed to send payment for the lease in two $4,000 bank drafts. I had no intention of paying out $8,000 until those checks had time to be cleared. In the meantime our attorney had called for complete abstracts to the acreage instead of the certificates of title supplied by the vendor—delaying settlement for several weeks.
But the eight thousand dollar payment was made, and I received the $375 velvet from Doctor Shaffer—I guess. For reasons of his own, unknown to me, Dr. Shaffer had a Wichita man mail me his personal check for $375, nothing more. I suspect one of those $4,000 drafts had been deposited in a Wichita bank. The transaction was legitimate. I had nothing to cover up. This payment to me had come off the salesman and the vendor, negotiated subsequent to the pledges made by syndicate members—leaving their full “investment” intact to work out its own salvation.