"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 man, with black eyes,
rather long black hair, and a full beard; extremely restless, and
constantly moving back and forth. He addressed many passers-by, a fair
proportion of whom stopped to exchange a word with him. In the latter
instance, however, the exchange was scarcely equitable, as he did the
talking, and his remarks, judging by his gestures of head and hand, were
generally emphatic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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