No Cure, no Pay:
I did not expect such success as attended me. What a city! what a people! How quickly do new opinions become popular!
The first day I had 300 visits for consultation at 20 francs each. The second I was obliged to seek at the Prefecture of Police four gend’arms as a protection! They took my office by assault. At length I hit upon a plan of giving advice to classes of twelve at a time, which in some measure reduced the crowd.
The week following I gave public lectures at the Athenæum, at five francs the ticket. Mr. Lefort told me the fashion would not last long, and that I should “make hay while the sun shone”—a proverb Menu forgot to make!—besides, there was danger that the prefect of police would close the monuments. I therefore entered into a contract with the porter at the Tower of St. James, to receive all my patients who subscribed for a fortnight.
The two trains to Versailles were filled with victims with closed eyes! I was told that if I would ask the minister for a patent, that he would probably grant me a pension—as they did to Mr. Daguerre—of six thousand francs a year.
My best reward, however, I found in the unanimous gratitude of my relieved and happy patients; they wanted to strike a gold medal in my honor!—unheard of enthusiasm!
Five of my most inveterate cases, aged from twenty to fifty years, struck with an infatuation for the vaudeville, of which I relieved them, became great proselytes to my doctrines, and are determined to prosecute it on their own account after my departure—they even propose to purchase the Tower of St. James by subscription, and add two hundred more steps to the ascent.
Ti-en has given to the world no malady without its cure; he has placed the water-lily by the side of the pimento—the wood to make the sluice beside the torrent of Kiang-ho. It is for man to discover the remedy. Ti-en knows always what he does—and we—we do what we know not!
My mind is now calm; my heart is light, as is every thing which is empty. I shall now go and take my leave of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and endeavor to correct the errors in diplomacy I have made, since I have been possessed by the foot of Mademoiselle Alexandrine de Saint Phar!
DOCTOR SIAN SENG.