The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade
wooingly than ever resumed: "May I venture upon a small supposition?
Have I your kind leave, ladies and gentlemen?"
To which modest appeal, no one had the kindness to answer a syllable.
"Well," said he, resignedly, "silence is at least not denial, and may be
consent. My supposition is this: possibly some lady, here present, has a
dear friend at home, a bed-ridden sufferer from spinal complaint. If so,
what gift more appropriate to that sufferer than this tasteful little
bottle of Pain Dissuader?"
Again he glanced about him, but met much the same reception as before.
Those faces, alien alike to sympathy or surprise, seemed patiently to
say, "We are travelers; and, as such, must expect to meet, and quietly
put up with, many antic fools, and more antic quacks."
"Ladies and gentlemen," (deferentially fixing his eyes upon their now
self-complacent faces) "ladies and gentlemen, might I, by your kind
leave, venture upon one other small supposition? It is this: that there
is scarce a sufferer, this noonday, writhing on his bed, but in his hour
he sat satisfactorily healthy and happy; that the Samaritan Pain
Dissuader is the one only balm for that to which each living
creature--who knows?--may be a draughted victim, present or prospective.
In short:--Oh, Happiness on my right hand, and oh, Security on my left,
can ye wisely adore a Providence, and not think it wisdom to
provide?--Provide!" (Uplifting the bottle.)
What immediate effect, if any, this appeal might have had, is uncertain.
For just then the boat touched at a houseless landing, scooped, as by a
land-slide, out of sombre forests; back through which led a road, the
sole one, which, from its narrowness, and its being walled up with story
on story of dusk, matted foliage, presented the vista of some cavernous
old gorge in a city, like haunted Cock Lane in London. Issuing from that
road, and crossing that landing, there stooped his shaggy form in the
door-way, and entered the ante-cabin, with a step so burdensome that
shot seemed in his pockets, a kind of invalid Titan in homespun; his
beard blackly pendant, like the Carolina-moss, and dank with cypress
dew; his countenance tawny and shadowy as an iron-ore country in a
clouded day. In one hand he carried a heavy walking-stick of swamp-oak;
with the other, led a puny girl, walking in moccasins, not improbably
his child, but evidently of alien maternity, perhaps Creole, or even
Camanche. Her eye would have been large for a woman, and was inky as the
pools of falls among mountain-pines. An Indian blanket, orange-hued, and
fringed with lead tassel-work, appeared that morning to have shielded
the child from heavy showers. Her limbs were tremulous; she seemed a
little Cassandra, in nervousness.
No sooner was the pair spied by the herb-doctor, than with a cheerful
air, both arms extended like a host's, he advanced, and taking the
child's reluctant hand, said, trippingly: "On your travels, ah, my
little May Queen? Glad to see you. What pretty moccasins. Nice to dance
in." Then with a half caper sang--
"'Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle;
The cow jumped over the moon.'
Come, chirrup, chirrup, my little robin!"
Which playful welcome drew no responsive playfulness from the child, nor
appeared to gladden or conciliate the father; but rather, if anything,
to dash the dead weight of his heavy-hearted expression with a smile
hypochondriacally scornful.
Sobering down now, the herb-doctor addressed the stranger in a manly,
business-like way--a transition which, though it might seem a little
abrupt, did not appear constrained, and, indeed, served to show that his
recent levity was less the habit of a frivolous nature, than the frolic
condescension of a kindly heart.
"Excuse me," said he, "but, if I err not, I was speaking to you the
other day;--on a Kentucky boat, wasn't it?"
"Never to me," was the reply; the voice deep and lonesome enough to have
come from the bottom of an abandoned coal-shaft.
"Ah!--But am I again mistaken, (his eye falling on the swamp-oak stick,)
or don't you go a little lame, sir?"
"Never was lame in my life."
"Indeed? I fancied I had perceived not a limp, but a hitch, a slight
hitch;--some experience in these things--divined some hidden cause of
the hitch--buried bullet, may be--some dragoons in the Mexican war
discharged with such, you know.--Hard fate!" he sighed, "little pity for
it, for who sees it?--have you dropped anything?"
Why, there is no telling, but the stranger was bowed over, and might
have seemed bowing for the purpose of picking up something, were it not
that, as arrested in the imperfect posture, he for the moment so
remained; slanting his tall stature like a mainmast yielding to the
gale, or Adam to the thunder.
The little child pulled him. With a kind of a surge he righted himself,
for an instant looked toward the herb-doctor; but, either from emotion
or aversion, or both together, withdrew his eyes, saying nothing.
Presently, still stooping, he seated himself, drawing his child between
his knees, his massy hands tremulous, and still averting his face, while
up into the compassionate one of the herb-doctor the child turned a
fixed, melancholy glance of repugnance.
The herb-doctor stood observant a moment, then said:
"Surely you have pain, strong pain, somewhere; in strong frames pain is
strongest. Try, now, my specific," (holding it up). "Do but look at the
expression of this friend of humanity. Trust me, certain cure for any
pain in the world. Won't you look?"
"No," choked the other.
"Very good. Merry time to you, little May Queen."
And so, as if he would intrude his cure upon no one, moved pleasantly
off, again crying his wares, nor now at last without result. A
new-comer, not from the shore, but another part of the boat, a sickly
young man, after some questions, purchased a bottle. Upon this, others
of the company began a little to wake up as it were; the scales of
indifference or prejudice fell from their eyes; now, at last, they
seemed to have an inkling that here was something not undesirable which
might be had for the buying.
But while, ten times more briskly bland than ever, the herb-doctor was
driving his benevolent trade, accompanying each sale with added praises
of the thing traded, all at once the dusk giant, seated at some
distance, unexpectedly raised his voice with--
"What was that you last said?"
The question was put distinctly, yet resonantly, as when a great
clock-bell--stunning admonisher--strikes one; and the stroke, though
single, comes bedded in the belfry clamor.
All proceedings were suspended. Hands held forth for the specific were
withdrawn, while every eye turned towards the direction whence the
question came. But, no way abashed, the herb-doctor, elevating his voice
with even more than wonted self-possession, replied--
"I was saying what, since you wish it, I cheerfully repeat, that the
Samaritan Pain Dissuader, which I here hold in my hand, will either cure
or ease any pain you please, within ten minutes after its application."
"Does it produce insensibility?"
"By no means. Not the least of its merits is, that it is not an opiate.
It kills pain without killing feeling."
"You lie! Some pains cannot be eased but by producing insensibility, and
cannot be cured but by producing death."
Beyond this the dusk giant said nothing; neither, for impairing the
other's market, did there appear much need to. After eying the rude
speaker a moment with an expression of mingled admiration and
consternation, the company silently exchanged glances of mutual sympathy
under unwelcome conviction. Those who had purchased looked sheepish or
ashamed; and a cynical-looking little man, with a thin flaggy beard, and
a countenance ever wearing the rudiments of a grin, seated alone in a
corner commanding a good view of the scene, held a rusty hat before his
face.
But, again, the herb-doctor, without noticing the retort, overbearing
though it was, began his panegyrics anew, and in a tone more assured
than before, going so far now as to say that his specific was sometimes
almost as effective in cases of mental suffering as in cases of
physical; or rather, to be more precise, in cases when, through
sympathy, the two sorts of pain coöperated into a climax of both--in
such cases, he said, the specific had done very well. He cited an
example: Only three bottles, faithfully taken, cured a Louisiana widow
(for three weeks sleepless in a darkened chamber) of neuralgic sorrow
for the loss of husband and child, swept off in one night by the last
epidemic. For the truth of this, a printed voucher was produced, duly
signed.
While he was reading it aloud, a sudden side-blow all but felled him.
It was the giant, who, with a countenance lividly epileptic with
hypochondriac mania, exclaimed--
"Profane fiddler on heart-strings! Snake!"
More he would have added, but, convulsed, could not; so, without another
word, taking up the child, who had followed him, went with a rocking
pace out of the cabin.
"Regardless of decency, and lost to humanity!" exclaimed the
herb-doctor, with much ado recovering himself. Then, after a pause,
during which he examined his bruise, not omitting to apply externally a
little of his specific, and with some success, as it would seem, plained
to himself:
"No, no, I won't seek redress; innocence is my redress. But," turning
upon them all, "if that man's wrathful blow provokes me to no wrath,
should his evil distrust arouse you to distrust? I do devoutly hope,"
proudly raising voice and arm, "for the honor of humanity--hope that,
despite this coward assault, the Samaritan Pain Dissuader stands
unshaken in the confidence of all who hear me!"
But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too, somehow his case
excited as little compassion as his oratory now did enthusiasm. Still,
pathetic to the last, he continued his appeals, notwithstanding the
frigid regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself, as
if in reply to a quick summons from without, he said hurriedly, "I come,
I come," and so, with every token of precipitate dispatch, out of the
cabin the herb-doctor went.
CHAPTER XVIII.
INQUEST INTO THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE HERB-DOCTOR.
"Sha'n't see that fellow again in a hurry," remarked an auburn-haired
gentleman, to his neighbor with a hook-nose. "Never knew an operator so
completely unmasked."
"But do you think it the fair thing to unmask an operator that way?"
"Fair? It is right."
"Supposing that at high 'change on the Paris Bourse, Asmodeus should
lounge in, distributing hand-bills, revealing the true thoughts and
designs of all the operators present--would that be the fair thing in
Asmodeus? Or, as Hamlet says, were it 'to consider the thing too
curiously?'"
"We won't go into that. But since you admit the fellow to be a
knave----"
"I don't admit it. Or, if I did, I take it back. Shouldn't wonder if,
after all, he is no knave at all, or, but little of one. What can you
prove against him?"
"I can prove that he makes dupes."
"Many held in honor do the same; and many, not wholly knaves, do it
too."
"How about that last?"
"He is not wholly at heart a knave, I fancy, among whose dupes is
himself. Did you not see our quack friend apply to himself his own
quackery? A fanatic quack; essentially a fool, though effectively a
knave."
Bending over, and looking down between his knees on the floor, the
auburn-haired gentleman meditatively scribbled there awhile with his
cane, then, glancing up, said:
"I can't conceive how you, in anyway, can hold him a fool. How he
talked--so glib, so pat, so well."
"A smart fool always talks well; takes a smart fool to be tonguey."