“Make it unanimous!” said Clyde. “What’s the first move of the army of relief? I’m in on this somewhere, Strong.”
“Contribute your car for a couple of days, then, and we’ll go out on a still hunt for the elusive clue and the shy and retiring evidence. In other words, we’ll scour the county, and look up some of these local testimonials which the Great Gray One gathered in last year, and now prints in the ‘Bugle.’”
“And I’ll stop in town and see Mr. Huddleston to-morrow,” said Mrs. Sharpless.
“You won’t get any results,” prophesied the Health Master. “But, anyway, get him to come to the Gray lecture on Tuesday evening. We’ll need him.”
During the ensuing two and a half days and two nights Mrs. Clyde had speech of her husband but once; and that was at 2 a.m. when he woke her up to tell her that he was having the time of his life, and she replied by asking him whether he had let the cat in, and returned to her dreams.
Bairdstown’s Suffering Womanhood—as per advertisement—turned out extensively and self-commiseratingly to the free lecture of Tuesday evening, bringing with them a considerable admixture of the male populace, curious, cynical, or expectant. On the platform sat a number of “special guests,” including the Rev. Mr. Huddleston, mild of face and white of hair, and the Honorable Silas Harris, owner of the “Bugle.”
“Cured” patients, to the number of half a dozen, fidgeted in the seats of honor with expressions of conscious and pleasurable importance.
“They appear to be enjoying poor health quite literally,” whispered Clyde to Dr. Strong, as the two, begrimed with the dust of a long day’s travel just finished, slipped quietly into side seats.
At once the entertainment began. A lank, harshfaced, muscular man whom Professor Gray introduced as his assistant, seated himself at the piano, and struck a chord, whereupon the Professor, in a powerful voice, sang what he termed the “Hymn of Healing,” inviting the audience to “assist” in the chorus, which gem of poesy ran as follows:—
“Ye shall be healed! Ye shall be healed!
Trust in the gospel advice.
Cured by the herbs of the wood and the field;
Healed without money or price.”