"Jest imagine the feelinks uv the mother!" says Lem, sad like.
"Jest imagine the feelinks uv the _baby_," sez Dock. "How'd you like to
be lyin' helpless in a crib with a big rat gnawin' your ear?"
Wall, all this conversation wuz fur from pleasant to those two wimmin in
the front seat, fur wimmin love babies 'nd hate rats, you know. It wuz
nuts fur Dock 'nd Lem to see the two wimmin squirm, 'nd all the way to
Peory they didn't talk about nuthink but snakes 'nd spiders 'nd mice 'nd
caterpillers. When the train got to Peory a gentleman met the two wimmin
'nd sez to one uv 'em: "I'm feered the trip haint done you much good,
Lizzie," says he. "Sakes alive, John," says she, "it's a wonder we haint
dead, for we've been travellin' forty miles with a real live Beadle dime
novvell!"
'Nuther trick Dock had wuz to walk 'long the street behind wimmin 'nd
tell about how his sister had jest lost one uv her diamond earrings
while out walkin'. Jest as soon as the wimmin heerd this they'd clap
their han's up to their ears to see if their earrings wuz all right.
Dock never laffed nor let on like he wuz jokin', but jest the same this
sort uv thing tickled him nearly to deth.
Dock went up to Chicago with Jedge Craig oncet, 'nd when they come back
the jedge said he'd never had such an offul time in all his born days.
Said that Dock bought a fool Mother Goose book to read in the hoss-cars
jest to queer folks; would set in a hoss-car lookin' at the picturs 'nd
readin' the verses 'nd laffin' like it wuz all new to him 'nd like he
wuz a child. Everybody sized him up for a ejeot, 'nd the wimmin folks
shook their heads 'nd said it wuz orful fur so fine a lookin' feller to
be such a tom fool. 'Nuther thing Dock did wuz to git hold uv a bad
quarter 'nd give it to a beggar, 'nd then foller the beggar into a
saloon 'nd git him arrested for tryin' to pass counterfit money. I
reckon that if Dock had stayed in Chicago a week he'd have had everybody
crazy.
No, I don't know how he come to be a medikil man. He told me oncet that
when he found out that he wuzn't good for anythink he concluded he'd be
a doctor; but I reckon that wuz one uv his jokes. He didn't have much uv
a practice: he wuz too yumorous to suit most invalids 'nd sick folks. We
had him tend our boy Sam jest oncet when Sam wuz comin' down with the
measles. He looked at Sam's tongue 'nd felt his pulse 'nd said he'd
leave a pill for Sam to take afore goin' to bed.
"How shell we administer the pill?" asked my wife.
"Wall," says Dock, "the best way to do is to git the boy down on the
floor 'nd hold his mouth open 'nd gag him till he swallers the pill.
After the pill gits into his system it will explode in about ten minits,
'nd then the boy will feel better."
This wuz cheerful news for the boy. No human power cud ha' got that pill
into Sam. We never solicited Dock's perfeshional services agin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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