The Clarion | Page 2

there peril in his presence?
Your predatory creature hunts ever with fear in his heart.
"Guardy," the voice of the elfin child rang silvery in the silence, as she
pressed close to her companion. "Guardy, is he preaching?"
"Yes, my dear little child." The orator saw his opportunity and swooped
upon it, with a flash of dazzling teeth from under his pliant lips. "This
sweet little girl asks if I am preaching. I thank her for the word.
Preaching, indeed! Preaching a blessed gospel, for this world of pain
and suffering; a gospel of hope and happiness and joy. I offer you, here,
now, this moment of blessed opportunity, the priceless boon of health.
It is within reach of the humblest and poorest as well as the millionaire.
The blessing falls on all like the gentle rain from heaven."
His hands, outstretched, quivering as if to shed the promised balm,
slowly descended below the level of the platform railing. Behind the
tricolored cheesecloth which screened him from the waist down
something stirred. The hands ascended again into the light. In each was
a bottle. The speaker's words came now sharp, decisive, compelling.
"Here it is! Look at it, my friends. The wonder of the scientific world,
the never-failing panacea, the despair of the doctors. All diseases yield
to it. It revivifies the blood, reconstructs the nerves, drives out the
poisons which corrupt the human frame. It banishes pain, sickness,
weakness, and cheats death of his prey. Oh, grave, where is thy victory?
Oh, death, where is thy power? Overcome by my marvelous discovery!
Harmless as water! Sweet on the tongue as honey! Potent as a miracle!
By the grace of Heaven, which has bestowed this secret upon me, I
have saved five thousand men, women, and children from sure doom,
in the last three years, through my swift and infallible remedy,
Professor Certain's Vitalizing Mixture; as witness my undenied
affidavit, sworn to before Almighty God and a notary public and

published in every newspaper in the State."
Wonder and hope exhaled in a sigh from the assemblage. People began
to stir, to shift from one foot to another, to glance about them nervously.
Professor Certain had them. It needed but the first thrust of hand into
pocket to set the avalanche of coin rolling toward the platform. From
near the speaker a voice piped thinly:--
"Will it ease my cough?"
The orator bent over, and his voice was like a benign hand upon the
brow of suffering.
"Ease it? You'll never know you had a cough after one bottle."
"We-ell, gimme--"
"Just a moment, my friend." The Professor was not yet ready. "Put your
dollar back. There's enough to go around. Oh, Uncle Cal! Step up here,
please."
An old negro, very pompous and upright, made his way to the steps and
mounted.
"You all know old Uncle Cal Parks, my friends. You've seen him
hobbling and hunching around for years, all twisted up with rheumatics.
He came to me yesterday, begging for relief, and we began treatment
with the Vitalizing Mixture right off. Look at him now. Show them
what you can do, uncle."
Wild-eyed, the old fellow gazed about at the people. "Glory!
Hallelujah!" Emotional explosives left over from the previous year's
revival burst from his lips. He broke into a stiff, but prankish
double-shuffle.
"I'd like to try some o' that on my old mare," remarked a
facetious-minded rustic, below, and a titter followed.
"Good for man or beast," retorted the Professor with smiling amiability.

"You've seen what the Vitalizing Mixture has done for this poor old
colored man. It will do as much or more for any of you. And the price
is Only One Dollar!" The voice double-capitalized the words. "Don't,
for the sake of one hundred little cents, put off the day of cure. Don't
waste your chance. Don't let a miserable little dollar stand between you
and death. Come, now. Who's first?"
The victim of the "cough" was first, closely followed by the
mare-owning wit. Then the whole mass seemed to be pressing forward,
at once. Like those of a conjurer, the deft hands of the Professor pushed
in and out of the light, snatching from below the bottles handed up to
him, and taking in the clinking silver and fluttering greenbacks. And
still they came, that line of grotesques, hobbling, limping, sprawling
their way to the golden promise. Never did Pied Piper flute to creatures
more bemused. Only once was there pause, when the dispenser of balm
held aloft between thumb and finger a cart-wheel dollar.
"Phony!" he said curtly, and flipped it far into the darkness. "Don't any
more of you try it on," he warned, as the thwarted profferer of the
counterfeit sidled away, and there was, in his tone, a dominant