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The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

Herman Melville

"Mercy, mercy!" coughed the old man, bewildered, "ever since seeing him, my head spins round so. I ought to have a guard_ee_an. Is this a snuff-colored surtout of yours, or ain't it? Somehow, can't trust my senses any more, since trusting him--ugh, ugh, ugh!" "Oh, you have trusted somebody? Glad to hear it. Glad to hear of any instance, of that sort. Reflects well upon all men. But you inquire whether this is a snuff-colored surtout. I answer it is; and will add that a herb-doctor wears it." Upon this the old man, in his broken way, replied that then he (the herb-doctor) was the person he sought--the person spoken of by the other person as yet unknown. He then, with flighty eagerness, wanted to know who this last person was, and where he was, and whether he could be trusted with money to treble it. "Aye, now, I begin to understand; ten to one you mean my worthy friend, who, in pure goodness of heart, makes people's fortunes for them--their everlasting fortunes, as the phrase goes--only charging his one small commission of confidence. Aye, aye; before intrusting funds with my friend, you want to know about him. Very proper--and, I am glad to assure you, you need have no hesitation; none, none, just none in the world; bona fide, none. Turned me in a trice a hundred dollars the other day into as many eagles." "Did he? did he? But where is he? Take me to him." "Pray, take my arm! The boat is large! We may have something of a hunt! Come on! Ah, is that he?" "Where? where?" "O, no; I took yonder coat-skirts for his. But no, my honest friend would never turn tail that way. Ah!----" "Where? where?" "Another mistake. Surprising resemblance. I took yonder clergyman for him. Come on!" Having searched that part of the boat without success, they went to another part, and, while exploring that, the boat sided up to a landing, when, as the two were passing by the open guard, the herb-doctor suddenly rushed towards the disembarking throng, crying out: "Mr. Truman, Mr. Truman! There he goes--that's he. Mr. Truman, Mr. Truman!--Confound that steam-pipe., Mr. Truman! for God's sake, Mr. Truman!--No, no.--There, the plank's in--too late--we're off." With that, the huge boat, with a mighty, walrus wallow, rolled away from the shore, resuming her course. "How vexatious!" exclaimed the herb-doctor, returning. "Had we been but one single moment sooner.--There he goes, now, towards yon hotel, his portmanteau following. You see him, don't you?" "Where? where?" "Can't see him any more. Wheel-house shot between. I am very sorry. I should have so liked you to have let him have a hundred or so of your money. You would have been pleased with the investment, believe me." "Oh, I _have_ let him have some of my money," groaned the old man. "You have? My dear sir," seizing both the miser's hands in both his own and heartily shaking them. "My dear sir, how I congratulate you. You don't know." "Ugh, ugh! I fear I don't," with another groan. "His name is Truman, is it?" "John Truman." "Where does he live?" "In St. Louis." "Where's his office?" "Let me see. Jones street, number one hundred and--no, no--anyway, it's somewhere or other up-stairs in Jones street." "Can't you remember the number? Try, now." "One hundred--two hundred--three hundred--" "Oh, my hundred dollars! I wonder whether it will be one hundred, two hundred, three hundred, with them! Ugh, ugh! Can't remember the number?" "Positively, though I once knew, I have forgotten, quite forgotten it. Strange. But never mind. You will easily learn in St. Louis. He is well known there." "But I have no receipt--ugh, ugh! Nothing to show--don't know where I stand--ought to have a guard_ee_an--ugh, ugh! Don't know anything. Ugh, ugh!" "Why, you know that you gave him your confidence, don't you?" "Oh, yes." "Well, then?" "But what, what--how, how--ugh, ugh!" "Why, didn't he tell you?" "No." "What! Didn't he tell you that it was a secret, a mystery?" "Oh--yes." "Well, then?" "But I have no bond." "Don't need any with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman's word is his bond." "But how am I to get my profits--ugh, ugh!--and my money back? Don't know anything. Ugh, ugh!" "Oh, you must have confidence." "Don't say that word again. Makes my head spin so. Oh, I'm so old and miserable, nobody caring for me, everybody fleecing me, and my head spins so--ugh, ugh!--and this cough racks me so. I say again, I ought to have a guard_ee_an." "So you ought; and Mr. Truman is your guardian to the extent you invested with him. Sorry we missed him just now. But you'll hear from him. All right. It's imprudent, though, to expose yourself this way. Let me take you to your berth." Forlornly enough the old miser moved slowly away with him. But, while descending a stairway, he was seized with such coughing that he was fain to pause. "That is a very bad cough." "Church-yard--ugh, ugh!--church-yard cough.--Ugh!" "Have you tried anything for it?" "Tired of trying. Nothing does me any good--ugh! ugh! Not even the Mammoth Cave. Ugh! ugh! Denned there six months, but coughed so bad the rest of the coughers--ugh! ugh!--black-balled me out. Ugh, ugh! Nothing does me good." "But have you tried the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, sir?" "That's what that Truman--ugh, ugh!--said I ought to take. Yarb-medicine; you are that yarb-doctor, too?" "The same. Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what I know of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalf of a friend, anything of whose excellence he is not conscientiously satisfied." "Ugh!--how much?" "Only two dollars a box." "Two dollars? Why don't you say two millions? ugh, ugh! Two dollars, that's two hundred cents; that's eight hundred farthings; that's two thousand mills; and all for one little box of yarb-medicine. My head, my head!--oh, I ought to have a guard_ee_an for; my head. Ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!" "Well, if two dollars a box seems too much, take a dozen boxes at twenty dollars; and that will be getting four boxes for nothing, and you need use none but those four, the rest you can retail out at a premium, and so cure your cough, and make money by it. Come, you had better do it. Cash down. Can fill an order in a day or two. Here now," producing a box; "pure herbs." At that moment, seized with another spasm, the miser snatched each interval to fix his half distrustful, half hopeful eye upon the medicine, held alluringly up. "Sure--ugh! Sure it's all nat'ral? Nothing but yarbs? If I only thought it was a purely nat'ral medicine now--all yarbs--ugh, ugh!--oh this cough, this cough--ugh, ugh!--shatters my whole body. Ugh, ugh, ugh!" "For heaven's sake try my medicine, if but a single box. That it is pure nature you may be confident, Refer you to Mr. Truman." "Don't know his number--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh! Oh this cough. He did speak well of this medicine though; said solemnly it would cure me--ugh, ugh, ugh, ugh!--take off a dollar and I'll have a box." "Can't sir, can't." "Say a dollar-and-half. Ugh!" "Can't. Am pledged to the one-price system, only honorable one." "Take off a shilling--ugh, ugh!" "Can't." "Ugh, ugh, ugh--I'll take it.--There." Grudgingly he handed eight silver coins, but while still in his hand, his cough took him and they were shaken upon the deck. One by one, the herb-doctor picked them up, and, examining them, said: "These are not quarters, these are pistareens; and clipped, and sweated, at that." "Oh don't be so miserly--ugh, ugh!--better a beast than a miser--ugh, ugh!" "Well, let it go. Anything rather than the idea of your not being cured of such a cough. And I hope, for the credit of humanity, you have not made it appear worse than it is, merely with a view to working upon the weak point of my pity, and so getting my medicine the cheaper. Now, mind, don't take it till night. Just before retiring is the time. There, you can get along now, can't you? I would attend you further, but I land presently, and must go hunt up my luggage." CHAPTER XXI. A HARD CASE. "Yarbs, yarbs; natur, natur; you foolish old file you! He diddled you with that hocus-pocus, did he? Yarbs and natur will cure your incurable cough, you think." It was a rather eccentric-looking person who spoke; somewhat ursine in aspect; sporting a shaggy spencer of the cloth called bear's-skin; a high-peaked cap of raccoon-skin, the long bushy tail switching over behind; raw-hide leggings; grim stubble chin; and to end, a double-barreled gun in hand--a Missouri bachelor, a Hoosier gentleman, of Spartan leisure and fortune, and equally Spartan manners and sentiments; and, as the sequel may show, not less acquainted, in a Spartan way of his own, with philosophy and books, than with woodcraft and rifles. He must have overheard some of the talk between the miser and the herb-doctor; for, just after the withdrawal of the one, he made up to the other--now at the foot of the stairs leaning against the baluster there--with the greeting above. "Think it will cure me?" coughed the miser in echo; "why shouldn't it? The medicine is nat'ral yarbs, pure yarbs; yarbs must cure me." "Because a thing is nat'ral, as you call it, you think it must be good. But who gave you that cough? Was it, or was it not, nature?" "Sure, you don't think that natur, Dame Natur, will hurt a body, do you?" "Natur is good Queen Bess; but who's responsible for the cholera?" "But yarbs, yarbs; yarbs are good?" "What's deadly-nightshade? Yarb, ain't it?" "Oh, that a Christian man should speak agin natur and yarbs--ugh, ugh, ugh!--ain't sick men sent out into the country; sent out to natur and grass?" "Aye, and poets send out the sick spirit to green pastures, like lame horses turned out unshod to the turf to renew their hoofs. A sort of yarb-doctors in their way, poets have it that for sore hearts, as for sore lungs, nature is the grand cure. But who froze to death my teamster on the prairie? And who made an idiot of Peter the Wild Boy?" "Then you don't believe in these 'ere yarb-doctors?" "Yarb-doctors? I remember the lank yarb-doctor I saw once on a hospital-cot in Mobile. One of the faculty passing round and seeing who lay there, said with professional triumph, 'Ah, Dr. Green, your yarbs don't help ye now, Dr. Green. Have to come to us and the mercury now, Dr. Green.--Natur! Y-a-r-b-s!'" "Did I hear something about herbs and herb-doctors?" here said a flute-like voice, advancing. It was the herb-doctor in person. Carpet-bag in hand, he happened to be strolling back that way. "Pardon me," addressing the Missourian, "but if I caught your words aright, you would seem to have little confidence in nature; which, really, in my way of thinking, looks like carrying the spirit of distrust pretty far." "And who of my sublime species may you be?" turning short round upon him, clicking his rifle-lock, with an air which would have seemed half cynic, half wild-cat, were it not for the grotesque excess of the expression, which made its sincerity appear more or less dubious. "One who has confidence in nature, and confidence in man, with some little modest confidence in himself." "That's your Confession of Faith, is it? Confidence in man, eh? Pray, which do you think are most, knaves or fools?" "Having met with few or none of either, I hardly think I am competent to answer." "I will answer for you. Fools are most." "Why do you think so?" "For the same reason that I think oats are numerically more than horses. Don't knaves munch up fools just as horses do oats?" "A droll, sir; you are a droll. I can appreciate drollery--ha, ha, ha!" "But I'm in earnest."