A Strange Discovery | Page 2

interests, shall
not, in the course of this narrative, again appear.
I had arrived at the town of Bellevue, in Southern Illinois, on a bright
June morning, and housed myself in an old-fashioned, four-story brick

hotel, the Loomis House, in which the proprietor, a portly, ruddy-faced,
trumpet-voiced man, assigned to me an apartment--a spacious corner
room, with three windows looking upon the main thoroughfare and two
upon a side street, and a smaller room adjoining.
[Illustration: The LOOMIS HOUSE.]
Here, even before the time came when I might have returned to
England had I so desired, I acquired quite a home-like feeling. The first
two days of my stay, as I had travelled rapidly and was somewhat
wearied, I allotted to rest, and left my room for little else than the
customary tri-daily visits to the _table d'hôte_.
During these first two days I made many observations from my
windows, and asked numberless questions of the bell-boy. I learned
that a certain old, rambling, two-story building directly across the side
street was the hotel mentioned by Dickens in his "American Notes,"
and in the lower passage-way of which he met the Scotch phrenologist,
"Doctor Crocus." The bell-boy whom I have mentioned was the
factotum of the Loomis House, being, in an emergency, hack-driver,
porter, runner--all by turns, and nothing long at a time. He was a quaint
genius, named Arthur; and his position, on the whole, was somewhat
more elevated than that of our English "Boots." During these two days I
became quite an expert in the invention of immediate personal wants;
for, as I continued my studies of local life from the windows of my
apartment, I frequently desired information, and would then ring my
bell, hoping that Arthur would be the person to respond, as he usually
was. He was an extremely profane youth, but profane in a quiet,
drawling, matter-of-fact manner. He was frequently semi-intoxicated
by noon, and sometimes quite inarticulate by 9 P.M.; but I never saw
him with his bodily equilibrium seriously impaired--in plainer words, I
never saw him stagger. He openly confessed to a weakness for an
occasional glass, but would have repelled with scorn, perhaps with
blows, an insinuation attributing to him excess in that direction. True,
he referred to times in his life when he had been "caught"--meaning
that the circumstances were on those occasions such as to preclude any
successful denial of intoxication; but these occasions, it was implied,

dated back to the period of his giddy youth.
With little to occupy my mind (I had the St. Louis dailies, one of which
was the best newspaper--excepting, of course, our _Times_--that I have
ever read; but my trunks did not arrive until a day or two later, and I
was without my favorite books), I became really interested in studying
the persons whom I saw passing and repassing the hotel, or stopping to
converse on the opposite street-corners; and after forming surmises
concerning those of them who most interested me, I would ask Arthur
who they were, and then compare with my own opinions the truth as
furnished by him.
There was a quiet, well-dressed young man, who three or four times
each day passed along the side street. Regarding him, I had formed and
altered my opinion several times; but I finally determined that he was a
clergyman in recent orders and just come to town. When I asked Arthur
whether I was correct in my surmise, he answered:
"Wrong again--that is, on the fellow's business"--I had not before made
an erroneous surmise; but on the contrary, had shown great penetration
in determining, at a single glance for each of them, two lawyers and a
banker--"Yes, sir, wrong again; and right again, too. His name's Doctor
Bainbridge, and he's fool enough to come here with the town just alive
with other sawbones. He's some kind of a 'pathy doctor, come here to
learn us how to get well on sugar and wind--or pretty near that bad. He
don't give no medicine worth mentionin', he keeps his hoss so fat he
can't trot, and he ain't got no wife to mend his clothes. They say he's
gettin' along, though; and old farmer Vagary's boy that had 'em, told me
he was good on fits--but I don't believe that, for the boy had the worst
fit in his life after he told me. The doctor said--so they tell--as that was
jest what he expected, and that he was glad the fit came so hard, for it
show'd the medicine was workin'."
My attention was particularly attracted to a man who daily, in fact
almost hourly, stood at an opposite corner, and who frequently arrived,
or drove away, in a buggy drawn by two rather small, black, spirited
horses. He was a tall, lithe, dark-complexioned