“Bairdstown’s Suffering Womanhood!” exclaimed the vigorous old lady, her color rising with her voice. “Go home! Go home, you poor, self-coddling fussybuddies, to your washboards and your sewing-machines and forget your imaginary symptoms.
“There!” she drew a long breath, looking about over the group of wilting testimonial-givers. “That’s the first speech I have ever made, and I guess it’ll be the last. But before I stop, I’ve got a word to say to you, Professor Graham Gray. Bless us! Where’s the man gone?”
“Professor Gray,” announced the chairman with a twinkle in his voice, “has retired to obtain fresh evidence. At least, that is what he said he had gone for.”
From the main floor came a hoarse suggestion which had the words “tar and feathers” in it. It was cut short by a metallic shriek from without, followed by a heavy rumbling.
“Something seems to tell me,” said the fat Mayor solemnly, “that the 9.30 express, which just whistled for the crossing, is the heavier by about two hundred pounds of Great Gray Benefactor clinging to the rear platform, and happy to be there.”
“And your money back if not benefited,” piped a reedy voice from the front, whereupon there was another roar.
“The bright particular star of these proceedings having left, is there anything else to come before the meeting?” inquired the chairman.
“I’d like to have one more word,” said Dr. Strong. “Friends, as one quack is, all quacks are. They differ only in method and degree. Every one of them plays a game with stacked cards, in which you are his victims, and Death is his partner. And the puller-in for this game is the press.
“You have heard to-night how a good and wellmeaning clergyman has been made stool-pigeon for this murderous charlatan, through the lying of a religious—God save the mark!—weekly. That publication is beyond our reach. But there is one here at home which did the quack’s work for him, and took his money for doing it. I suggest that the Honorable Silas Harris explain!”
“I’m running my paper as a business proposition,” growled the baited editor and owner of the ‘Bugle,’ “and I’m running it to suit myself and this community.”