“Some poetic license in that last line,” murmured Clyde to his companion.
“The next portion of our programme,” announced the Great Gray Benefactor, “will be corroborative readings from the Good Book.” And he proceeded to deliver in oratorical style sundry Bible quotations so patched together and garbled as to ascribe, inferentially, miraculous powers to the Gospel Herbs. Then came the lecture proper, which was merely an amplification of the “Bugle” advertisement, interspersed with almanac funny stories and old jokes.
“And now, before our demonstration,” concluded Professor Graham Gray, “if there is any here seeking enlightenment or help, let him rise. This is your meeting, dear friends, as much as mine; free to your voices and your needs, as well as to your welcome presence here. I court inquiry and fair investigation. Any questions? If not, we—”
“One moment!” The whole assemblage turned, as on a single pivot, to the side aisle where Dr. Strong had risen and now stood, tall, straight, and composed, waiting for silence.
“Our friend on the right has the floor,” said the Professor suavely.
“You state that this God-given secret remedy was imparted to you for the relief of human misery?” asked Dr. Strong.
“Thousands of grateful patients attest it, my friend.”
“Then, with human beings suffering and dying all about you, why do you continue to profit by keeping it secret?”
Down sat the questioner. A murmur rose and ran, as the logic of the question struck home. But the quack had his answer pat.
“Does not the Good Book say that the laborer is worthy of his hire? Do your regular physicians, of whom I understand you are one, treat cases for nothing? Ah,” he went on, outstretching his hands to the audience with a gesture of appeal, “the injustice which I have suffered from the jealousy and envy of the medical profession! Never do I enter a town without curing many unfortunates that the regular doctors have given up as hopeless. Hence the violence of their attacks upon me. But I forgive them their prejudice, as I pity their ignorance.”