“You look it, and I trust a good deal to appearances. I will accept your assurance.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Can you join me at once?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I will expect you to bring your baggage here during the day—the sooner the better. You will then receive your instructions.”
Walter was very glad to hear this, for his purse was so nearly exhausted that it was comforting to think his lodging and meals would hereafter be paid by some one else. When he came to reflect upon the nature of his duties—general assistant to a quack doctor, playing on village commons and in country halls to draw a crowd of prospective customers, he felt that it was hardly a thing to be proud of. With his college training he ought to be qualified for something better, but the cold, hard fact stared him in the face that it was the only employment that offered, and he must accept it or starve. Walter had become practical. His limited acquaintance with the world had made him so, and he was not going to refuse bread and butter because it was offered by a quack doctor.
Within an hour Walter had given up his room—the rent had been paid in advance—and transferred his luggage to the Hotel Brevoort, where he was assigned a small apartment on the upper floor.
“I shall leave the city in two days,” said the professor. “I have put an advertisement into the daily papers which brings customers to the hotel, but I depend chiefly upon my sales on the road.”
“Do you travel on the cars?” asked Walter.
“No; I have a neat wagon in which I carry a supply of bottles of balm, and this enables me to stop where I like. I prefer villages to very large towns and cities. It is better for me to visit places where there are no drug-stores, as the people are more dependent on what is brought to them.”