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 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, as hereafter I was to encounter only one calamity after another.
Travelling slowly eastward, my spirits began at last to rise to their usual level, and when I arrived in Boston I set myself to thinking how best I could contrive to enjoy life, and at the same time to increase my means.
On former occasions I was a moneyless adventurer; now I possessed sufficient capital, and was able and ready to embark in whatever promised the best returns with the smallest personal risk. Several schemes presented themselves as worthy the application of industry and talent, but none of them altogether suited my tastes. I thought at times of travelling as a Physiological Lecturer, combining with it the business of a practitioner. Scare the audience at night with an enumeration of symptoms which belong to ten out of every dozen of healthy people, and then doctor such of them as are gulls enough to consult me next day. The bigger the fright, the better the pay. I was a little timid, however, about facing large audiences, as a man will be naturally if he has lived a life of adventure, so that, upon due consideration, I gave up the idea altogether.
The patent-medicine business also looked well enough, but it is somewhat overdone at all times, and requires a heavy outlay, with the possible result of ill-success. Indeed, I believe fifty quack remedies fail for one that succeeds; and millions must have been wasted in placards, bills, and advertisements, which never returned half their value to the speculator. If I live, I think I shall beguile my time with writing the lives of the principal quacks who have met with success. They are few in number, after all, as any one must know who recalls the countless remedies which are puffed awhile on the fences, and disappear to be heard of no more.
Lastly, I inclined for a while to undertake a private insane asylum, which appeared to me to offer facilities for money-making; as to which, however, I may have been deceived by the writings of certain popular novelists. I went so far, I may say, as actually to visit Concord for the purpose of finding a pleasant locality and a suitable atmosphere; but, upon due reflection, abandoned my plan as involving too much personal labor to suit one of my easy frame of mind.
Tired at last of idleness and of lounging on the Common, I engaged in two or three little ventures of a semi-professional character, such as an exhibition of laughing-gas; advertising to cure cancer; send ten stamps by mail to J. B., and receive an infallible receipt, etc. I did not find, however, that these little enterprises prospered well in New England, and I had recalled to me very forcibly a story which my grandfather was fond of relating to me in my boyhood. It briefly narrated how certain very knowing flies went to get molasses, and how it ended by the molasses getting them. This, indeed, was precisely what happened to me in all my little efforts to better myself in the Northern States, until at length my misfortunes climaxed in total and unexpected ruin.
The event which deprived me of the hard-won earnings of years of ingenious industry was brought about by the baseness of a man who was concerned with me in purchasing drugs for exportation to the Confederate States. Unluckily, I was obliged to employ as my agent a long-legged sea-captain from Maine. With his aid, I invested in this enterprise about six thousand dollars, which I reasonably hoped to quadruple. Our arrangements were cleverly made to run the blockade at Charleston, and we were to sail on a certain Thursday morning in September, 1863. I sent my clothes on board, and went down the evening before to go on board, but found that the little schooner had been hauled out from the pier. The captain, who met me at this time, endeavored to get a boat in order to ferry us to the ship, but the night was stormy, and we were obliged to return to our lodgings. Early next day I dressed and went to the captain's room, which proved to be empty. I was instantly filled with doubt, and ran frantically to the foot of Long Wharf, where, to my horror, I could see no signs of schooner or captain. Neither have I ever again set eyes on them from that time to this. I immediately lodged information with the police as to the unpatriotic designs of the rascal who had swindled me, but whether or not justice ever overtook him I am unable to say.
It was, as I perceived, such utterly spilt milk as to be little worth lamenting; and I therefore set to work with my accustomed energy to utilize on my own behalf the resources of my medical education, which so often before had saved me from want. The war, then raging at its height, appeared to me to offer numerous opportunities to men of talent. The path which I chose myself was apparently a humble one, but it enabled me to make very agreeable use of my professional knowledge, and afforded rapid and secure returns, without any other investment than a little knowledge cautiously employed. In the first place, I deposited my small remnant of property in a safe bank, and then proceeded to Providence, where, as I had heard, patriotic persons were giving very large bounties in order, I suppose, to insure to the government the services of better men than themselves. On my arrival I lost no time in offering myself as a substitute, and was readily accepted, and very soon mustered into the Twentieth Rhode Island. Three months were passed, in camp, during which period I received bounties to the extent of six hundred and fifty dollars, with which I tranquilly deserted about two hours before the regiment left for the field. With the product of my industry I returned to Boston, and deposited all but enough to carry me to New York, where within a month I enlisted twice, earning on each occasion four hundred dollars.
My next essay was in Philadelphia, which I approached, even after some years of absence, with a good deal of doubt. It was an ill-omened place for me; for although I got nearly seven hundred dollars by entering the service as a substitute for an editor,—whose pen, I presume, was mightier than his sword,—I was disagreeably surprised by being hastily forwarded to the front under a foxy young lieutenant, who brutally shot down a poor devil in the streets of Baltimore for attempting to desert. At this point I began to make use of my medical skill, for I did not in the least degree fancy being shot, either because of deserting or of not deserting. It happened, therefore, that a day or two later, while in Washington, I was seized in the street with a fit, which perfectly imposed upon the officer in charge, and caused him to leave me at the Douglas Hospital. Here I found it necessary to perform fits about twice a week; and as there were several real epileptics in the wards I had a capital chance of studying their symptoms, which finally I learned to imitate with the utmost cleverness.
I soon got to know three or four men, who, like myself, were personally averse to bullets, and who were simulating other forms of disease with more or less success. One of them suffered with rheumatism of the back, and walked about bent like an old man; another, who had been to the front, was palsied in the left arm; and a third kept open an ulcer on the leg, by rubbing in a little antimonial ointment, which I sold him at five dollars a box, and bought at fifty cents.