The Autobiography of a Quack, and The Case of George DedlowMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
General
The Autobiography of a Quack, and The Case of George Dedlow
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
As I wish rather to illustrate my very remarkable professional career
than to amuse by describing its lesser incidents, I shall not linger to
tell how I succeeded, at last, in reaching St. Louis. Fortunately, I
had never ceased to anticipate the moment when escape from File and his
friends would be possible, so that I always carried about with me the
very small funds with which I had hastily provided myself upon leaving.
The whole amount did not exceed sixty-five dollars, but with this, and
a gold watch worth twice as much, I hoped to be able to subsist until
my own ingenuity enabled me to provide more liberally for the future.
Naturally enough, I scanned the papers closely to discover some account
of File’s death and of the disclosures concerning myself which he was
only too likely to have made.
I came at last on an account of how he had poisoned himself, and so
escaped the hangman. I never learned what he had said about me, but I
was quite sure he had not let me off easy. I felt that this failure to
announce his confessions was probably due to a desire on the part of the
police to avoid alarming me. Be this as it may, I remained long ignorant
as to whether or not the villain betrayed my part in that unusual
coroner’s inquest.
Before many days I had resolved to make another and a bold venture.
Accordingly appeared in the St. Louis papers an advertisement to the
effect that Dr. von Ingenhoff, the well-known German physician, who had
spent two years on the Plains acquiring a knowledge of Indian medicine,
was prepared to treat all diseases by vegetable remedies alone. Dr. von
Ingenhoff would remain in St. Louis for two weeks, and was to be found
at the Grayson House every day from ten until two o’clock.
To my delight, I got two patients the first day. The next I had twice as
many, when at once I hired two connecting rooms, and made a very useful
arrangement, which I may describe dramatically in the following way:
There being two or three patients waiting while I finished my cigar and
morning julep, enters a respectable-looking old gentleman who inquires
briskly of the patients if this is really Dr. von Ingenhoff’s. He is
told it is. My friend was apt to overact his part. I had often occasion
to ask him to be less positive.
“Ah,” says he, “I shall be delighted to see the doctor. Five years ago
I was scalped on the Plains, and now”--exhibiting a well-covered
head--“you see what the doctor did for me. ‘T isn’t any wonder I’ve come
fifty miles to see him. Any of you been scalped, gentlemen?”
To none of them had this misfortune arrived as yet; but, like most folks
in the lower ranks of life and some in the upper ones, it was pleasant
to find a genial person who would listen to their account of their own
symptoms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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