Here the young man broke in with: “Come, father; don’t worry yourself for nothing”; and then turning, added: “To cut the thing short, he found the notes under his candle-stick, where he left them on going to bed. This is all of it. We came here to stop this fellow” (by which he meant me) “from carrying a slander further. I advise you, good people, to profit by the matter, and to look up a more honest doctor, if doctoring be what you want.”
As soon as he had ended, I remarked solemnly: “The words of the spirits are not my words. Who shall hold them accountable?”
“Nonsense,” said the young man. “Come, father”; and they left the room.
Now was the time to retrieve my character. “Gentlemen,” said I, “you have heard this very singular account. Trusting the spirits utterly and entirely as I do, it occurs to me that there is no reason why they may not, after all, have been right in their suspicions of this young person. Who can say that, overcome by remorse, he may not have seized the time of his father’s absence to replace the money?”
To my amazement, up gets a little old man from the corner. “Well, you are a low cuss!” said he, and taking up a basket beside him, hobbled hastily out of the room. You may be sure I said some pretty sharp things to him, for I was out of humor to begin with, and it is one thing to be insulted by a stout young man, and quite another to be abused by a wretched old cripple. However, he went away, and I supposed, for my part, that I was done with the whole business.
An hour later, however, I heard a rough knock at my door, and opening it hastily, saw my red-headed young man with the cripple.
“Now,” said the former, taking me by the collar, and pulling me into the room among my patients, “I want to know, my man, if this doctor said that it was likely I was the thief after all?”
“That’s what he said,” replied the cripple; “just about that, sir.”
I do not desire to dwell on the after conduct of this hot-headed young man. It was the more disgraceful as I offered but little resistance, and endured a beating such as I would have hesitated to inflict upon a dog. Nor was this all. He warned me that if I dared to remain in the city after a week he would shoot me. In the East I should have thought but little of such a threat, but here it was only too likely to be practically carried out. Accordingly, with my usual decision of character, but with much grief and reluctance, I collected my whole fortune, which now amounted to at least seven thousand dollars, and turned my back upon this ungrateful town. I am sorry to say that I also left behind me the last of my good luck.
I traveled in a leisurely way until I reached Boston. The country anywhere would have been safer, but I do not lean to agricultural pursuits. It seemed an agreeable city, and I decided to remain.