The Clarion | Page 5

bandages. When he returned the patient had recovered consciousness.
"Where's Dad?" he asked eagerly. "Did he hurt Dad?"
"No, Boyee." The big man was at the bedside in two long, velvety-footed steps. Struck by the extenuation of the final "y" in the term, the physician for the first time noted a very faint foreign accent, the merest echo of some alien tongue. "Are you in pain, Boyee?"
"Not very much. It doesn't matter. Why did he want to kill you?"
"Never mind that, now," interrupted the physician. "We'll get that scratch bound up, and then, young man, you'll go to sleep."
Pallid as a ghost, the itinerant held the little hand during the process of binding the wound. "Boyee" essayed to smile, at the end, and closed his eyes.
"Now we can leave him," said the physician. "Poppet, curl up in that chair and keep watch on our patient while this gentleman and I have a little talk in the outer room."
With a brisk nod of obedience and comprehension, the elfin girl took her place, while the two men went out.
"What do I owe you?" asked Professor Certain, as soon as the door had closed.
"Nothing."
"Oh, that won't do."
"It will have to do."
"Courtesy of the profession? But--"
The other laughed grimly, cutting him short. "So you call yourself an M.D., do you?"
"Call myself? I am. Regular degree from the Dayton Medical College." He sleeked down his heavy hair with a complacent hand.
The physician snorted. "A diploma-mill. What did you pay for your M.D.?"
"One hundred dollars, and it's as good as your four-year P. and S. course or any other, for my purposes," retorted the other, with hardihood. "What's more, I'm a member of the American Academy of Surgeons, with a special diploma from St. Luke's Hospital of Niles, Michigan, and a certificate of fellowship in the National Medical Scientific Fraternity. Pleased to meet a brother practitioner." The sneer was as palpable as it was cynical.
"You've got all the fake trimmings, haven't you? Do those things pay?"
"Do they! Better than your game, I'll bet. Name your own fee, now, and don't be afraid to make it strong."
"I'm not in regular practice. I'm a naval surgeon on leave. Give your money to those poor devils you swindled to-night. I don't like the smell of it."
"Oh, you can't rile me," returned the quack. "I don't blame you regulars for getting sore when you see us fellows culling out coin from under your very noses, that you can't touch."
"Cull it, and welcome. But don't try to pass it on to me."
"Well, I'd like to do something for you in return for what you did for my son."
"Would you? Pay me in words, then, if you will and dare. What is your Vitalizing Mixture?"
"That's my secret."
"Liquor? Eh?"
"Some."
"Morphine?"
"A little."
"And the rest syrup and coloring matter, I suppose. A fine vitalizer!"
"It gets the money," retorted the other.
"And your soothing, balmy oils for cancer? Arsenious acid, I suppose, to eat it out?"
"What if it is? As well that as anything else--for cancer."
"Humph! I happened to see a patient you'd treated, two years ago, by that mild method. It wasn't cancer at all; only a benign tumor. Your soothing oils burned her breast off, like so much fire. She's dead now."
"Oh, we all make mistakes."
"But we don't all commit murder."
"Rub it in, if you like to. You can't make me mad. Just the same, if it wasn't for what you've done for Boyee--"
"Well, what about 'Boyee'?" broke in his persecutor quite undisturbed. "He seems a perfectly decent sort of human integer."
The bold eyes shifted and softened abruptly. "He's the big thing in my life."
"Bringing him up to the trade, eh?"
"No, damn you!"
"Damn me, if you like. But don't damn him. He seems to be a bit too good for this sort of thing."
"To tell you the truth," said the other gloomily, "I was going to quit at the end of this year, anyway. But I guess this ends it now. Accidents like this hurt business. I guess this closes my tour."
"Is the game playing out?"
"Not exactly! Do you know what I took out of this town last night? One hundred and ten good dollars. And to-morrow's consultation is good for fifty more. That 'spiel' of mine is the best high-pitch in the business."
"High-pitch?"
"High-pitching," explained the quack, "is our term for the talk, the patter. You can sell sugar pills to raise the dead with a good-enough high-pitch. I've done it myself--pretty near. With a voice like mine, it's a shame to drop it. But I'm getting tired. And Boyee ought to have schooling. So, I'll settle down and try a regular proprietary trade with the Mixture and some other stuff I've got. I guess I can make printer's ink do the work. And there's millions in it if you once get a start. More than you can