The Clarion | Page 3

cure are at their beck and call. Lady," he bent swiftly to the slattern under the torch and his accents were a healing effluence, "with my soothing, balmy oils, you can cure yourself in three weeks, or your money back."
"I do' know haow you knew," faltered the woman. "I ain't told no one yet. Kinder hoped it wa'n't thet, after all."
He brooded over her compassionately. "You've suffered needlessly. Soon it would have been too late. The Vitalizing Mixture will keep up your strength, while the soothing, balmy oils drive out the poison, and heal up the sore. Three and a half for the two. Thank you. And is there some suffering friend who you can lead to the light?"
The woman hesitated. She moved out to the edge of the crowd, and spoke earnestly to a younger woman, whose comely face was scarred with the chiseling of sleeplessness.
"Joe, he wouldn't let me," protested the younger woman. "He'd say 't was a waste."
"But ye'll be cured," cried the other in exaltation. "Think of it. Ye'll sleep again o' nights."
The woman's hand went to her breast, with a piteous gesture. "Oh, my God! D'yeh think it could be true?" she cried.
"Accourse it's true! Didn't yeh hear whut he sayed? Would he dast swear to it if it wasn't true?"
Tremulously the younger woman moved forward, clutching her shawl about her.
"Could yeh sell me half a bottle to try it, sir?" she asked.
The vender shook his head. "Impossible, my dear madam. Contrary to my fixed professional rule. But, I'll tell you what I will do. If, in three days you're not better, you can have your money back."
She began painfully to count out her coins. Reaching impatiently for his price, the Professor found himself looking straight into the eyes of the well-dressed stranger.
"Are you going to take that woman's money?"
The question was low-toned but quite clear. An uneasy twitching beset the corners of the professional brow. For just the fraction of a second, the outstretched hand was stayed. Then:--
"That's what I am. And all the others I can get. Can I sell you a bottle?"
Behind the suavity there was the impudence of the man who is a little alarmed, and a little angry because of the alarm.
"Why, yes," said the other coolly. "Some day I might like to know what's in the stuff."
"Hand up your cash then. And here you are--Doctor. It is 'Doctor,' ain't it?"
"You've guessed it," returned the stranger.
[Illustration: HELP AND CURE ARE AT THEIR BECK AND CALL.]
At once the platform peddler became the opportunist orator again.
"A fellow practitioner, in my audience, ladies and gentlemen; and doing me the honor of purchasing my cure. Sir," the splendid voice rose and soared as he addressed his newest client, "you follow the noblest of callings. My friends, I would rather heal a people's ills than determine their destinies."
Giving them a moment to absorb that noble sentiment, he passed on to his next source of revenue: Dyspepsia. He enlarged and expatiated upon its symptoms until his subjects could fairly feel the grilling at the pit of their collective stomach. One by one they came forward, the yellow-eyed, the pasty-faced feeders on fried breakfasts, snatchers of hasty noon-meals, sleepers on gorged stomachs. About them he wove the glamour of his words, the arch-seducer, until the dollars fidgeted in their pockets.
"Just one dollar the bottle, and pain is banished. Eat? You can eat a cord of hickory for breakfast, knots and all, and digest it in an hour. The Vitalizing Mixture does it."
Assorted ills came next. In earlier spring it would have been pneumonia and coughs. Now it was the ailments that we have always with us: backache, headache, indigestion and always the magnificent promise. So he picked up the final harvest, gleaning his field.
"Now,"--the rotund voice sunk into the confidential, sympathetic register, yet with a tone of saddened rebuke,--"there are topics that the lips shrink from when ladies are present. But I have a word for you young men. Young blood! Ah, young blood, and the fire of life! For that we pay a penalty. Yet we must not overpay the debt. To such as wish my private advice--private, I say, and sacredly confidential--" He broke off and leaned out over the railing. "Thousands have lived to bless the name of Professor Certain, and his friendship, at such a crisis; thousands, my friends. To such, I shall be available for consultation from nine to twelve to-morrow, at the Moscow Hotel. Remember the time and place. Men only. Nine to twelve. And all under the inviolable seal of my profession."
Some quality of unexpressed insistence in the stranger--or was it the speaker's own uneasiness of spirit?--brought back the roving, brilliant eyes to the square face below.
"A little blackmail on the side, eh?"
The words were spoken low, but with a