Produced by Charles Keller and David Widger
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK
AND
THE CASE OF GEORGE DEDLOW
By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D., LL.D. Harvard And Edinburgh
CONTENTS
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK
THE CASE OF GEORGE DEDLOW
INTRODUCTION
Both of the tales in this little volume appeared originally in the
“Atlantic Monthly” as anonymous contributions. I owe to the present
owners of that journal permission to use them. “The Autobiography of a
Quack” has been recast with large additions.
“The Case of George Dedlow” was not written with any intention that it
should appear in print. I lent the manuscript to the Rev. Dr. Furness
and forgot it. This gentleman sent it to the Rev. Edward Everett
Hale. He, presuming, I fancy, that every one desired to appear in the
“Atlantic,” offered it to that journal. To my surprise, soon afterwards
I received a proof and a check. The story was inserted as a leading
article without my name. It was at once accepted by many as the
description of a real case. Money was collected in several places to
assist the unfortunate man, and benevolent persons went to the “Stump
Hospital,” in Philadelphia, to see the sufferer and to offer him aid.
The spiritual incident at the end of the story was received with joy by
the spiritualists as a valuable proof of the truth of their beliefs.
S. WEIR MITCHELL
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A QUACK
At this present moment of time I am what the doctors call an interesting
case, and am to be found in bed No. 10, Ward 11, Massachusetts General
Hospital. I am told that I have what is called Addison’s disease, and
that it is this pleasing malady which causes me to be covered with large
blotches of a dark mulatto tint. However, it is a rather grim subject
to joke about, because, if I believed the doctor who comes around every
day, and thumps me, and listens to my chest with as much pleasure as
if I were music all through--I say, if I really believed him, I should
suppose I was going to die. The fact is, I don’t believe him at
all. Some of these days I shall take a turn and get about again; but
meanwhile it is rather dull for a stirring, active person like me to
have to lie still and watch myself getting big brown and yellow spots
all over me, like a map that has taken to growing.
The man on my right has consumption--smells of cod-liver oil, and coughs
all night. The man on my left is a down-easter with a liver which has
struck work; looks like a human pumpkin; and how he contrives to whittle
jackstraws all day, and eat as he does, I can’t understand. I have tried
reading and tried whittling, but they don’t either of them satisfy me,
so that yesterday I concluded to ask the doctor if he couldn’t suggest
some other amusement.
I waited until he had gone through the ward, and then seized my chance,
and asked him to stop a moment.
“Well, my man,” said he, “what do you want!”
I thought him rather disrespectful, but I replied, “Something to do,
doctor.”
He thought a little, and then said: “I’ll tell you what to do. I think
if you were to write out a plain account of your life it would be pretty
well worth reading. If half of what you told me last week be true, you
must be about as clever a scamp as there is to be met with. I suppose
you would just as lief put it on paper as talk it.”
“Pretty nearly,” said I. “I think I will try it, doctor.”
After he left I lay awhile thinking over the matter. I knew well that I
was what the world calls a scamp, and I knew also that I had got little
good out of the fact. If a man is what people call virtuous, and fails
in life, he gets credit at least for the virtue; but when a man is
a--is--well, one of liberal views, and breaks down, somehow or other
people don’t credit him with even the intelligence he has put into the
business. This I call hard. If I did not recall with satisfaction the
energy and skill with which I did my work, I should be nothing but
disgusted at the melancholy spectacle of my failure. I suppose that
I shall at least find occupation in reviewing all this, and I
think, therefore, for my own satisfaction, I shall try to amuse my
convalescence by writing a plain, straightforward account of the life I
have led, and the various devices by which I have sought to get my share
of the money of my countrymen. It does appear to me that I have had no
end of bad luck.
As no one will ever see these pages, I find it pleasant to recall for my
own satisfaction the fact that I am really a very remarkable man. I
am, or rather I was, very good-looking, five feet eleven, with a lot
of curly red hair, and blue eyes. I am left-handed, which is another
unusual thing. My hands have often been noticed. I get them from my
mother, who was a Fishbourne, and a lady. As for my father, he was
rather common. He was a little man, red and round like an apple, but
very strong, for a reason I shall come to presently. The family must
have had a pious liking for Bible names, because he was called Zebulon,
my sister Peninnah, and I Ezra, which is not a name for a gentleman. At
one time I thought of changing it, but I got over it by signing myself
“E. Sanderaft.”
Where my father was born I do not know, except that it was somewhere in
New Jersey, for I remember that he was once angry because a man called
him a Jersey Spaniard. I am not much concerned to write about my people,
because I soon got above their level; and as to my mother, she died when
I was an infant. I get my manners, which are rather remarkable, from
her.
My aunt, Rachel Sanderaft, who kept house for us, was a queer character.
She had a snug little property, about seven thousand dollars. An old
aunt left her the money because she was stone-deaf. As this defect came
upon her after she grew up, she still kept her voice. This woman was the
cause of some of my ill luck in life, and I hope she is uncomfortable,
wherever she is. I think with satisfaction that I helped to make her
life uneasy when I was young, and worse later on. She gave away to the
idle poor some of her small income, and hid the rest, like a magpie,
in her Bible or rolled in her stockings, or in even queerer places.
The worst of her was that she could tell what people said by looking at
their lips; this I hated. But as I grew and became intelligent, her ways
of hiding her money proved useful, to me at least. As to Peninnah, she
was nothing special until she suddenly bloomed out into a rather
stout, pretty girl, took to ribbons, and liked what she called “keeping
company.” She ran errands for every one, waited on my aunt, and thought
I was a wonderful person--as indeed I was. I never could understand her
fondness for helping everybody. A fellow has got himself to think about,
and that is quite enough. I was told pretty often that I was the most
selfish boy alive. But, then, I am an unusual person, and there are
several names for things.
My father kept a small shop for the sale of legal stationery and the
like, on Fifth street north of Chestnut. But his chief interest in life
lay in the bell-ringing of Christ Church. He was leader, or No. 1, and
the whole business was in the hands of a kind of guild which is nearly
as old as the church. I used to hear more of it than I liked, because my
father talked of nothing else. But I do not mean to bore myself writing
of bells. I heard too much about “back shake,” “raising in peal,”
“scales,” and “touches,” and the Lord knows what.
My earliest remembrance is of sitting on my father’s shoulder when he
led off the ringers. He was very strong, as I said, by reason of this
exercise. With one foot caught in a loop of leather nailed to the floor,
he would begin to pull No. 1, and by and by the whole peal would be
swinging, and he going up and down, to my joy; I used to feel as if it
was I that was making the great noise that rang out all over the town.
My familiar acquaintance with the old church and its lumber-rooms, where
were stored the dusty arms of William and Mary and George II., proved of
use in my later days.
My father had a strong belief in my talents, and I do not think he was
mistaken. As he was quite uneducated, he determined that I should not
be. He had saved enough to send me to Princeton College, and when I
was about fifteen I was set free from the public schools. I never liked
them. The last I was at was the high school. As I had to come
down-town to get home, we used to meet on Arch street the boys from the
grammar-school of the university, and there were fights every week. In
winter these were most frequent, because of the snow-balling. A fellow
had to take his share or be marked as a deserter. I never saw any
personal good to be had out of a fight, but it was better to fight
than to be cobbed. That means that two fellows hold you, and the other
fellows kick you with their bent knees. It hurts.
I find just here that I am describing a thing as if I were writing for
some other people to see. I may as well go on that way. After all, a
man never can quite stand off and look at himself as if he was the only
person concerned. He must have an audience, or make believe to have one,
even if it is only himself. Nor, on the whole, should I be unwilling, if
it were safe, to let people see how great ability may be defeated by the
crankiness of fortune.
I may add here that a stone inside of a snowball discourages the fellow
it hits. But neither our fellows nor the grammar-school used stones in
snowballs. I rather liked it. If we had a row in the springtime we all
threw stones, and here was one of those bits of stupid custom no man can
understand; because really a stone outside of a snowball is much more
serious than if it is mercifully padded with snow. I felt it to be
a rise in life when I got out of the society of the common boys who
attended the high school.
When I was there a man by the name of Dallas Bache was the head master.
He had a way of letting the boys attend to what he called the character
of the school. Once I had to lie to him about taking another boy’s ball.
He told my class that I had denied the charge, and that he always took
it for granted that a boy spoke the truth. He knew well enough what
would happen. It did. After that I was careful.
Princeton was then a little college, not expensive, which was very well,
as my father had some difficulty to provide even the moderate amount
needed.
I soon found that if I was to associate with the upper set of young men
I needed money. For some time I waited in vain. But in my second year
I discovered a small gold-mine, on which I drew with a moderation which
shows even thus early the strength of my character.
I used to go home once a month for a Sunday visit, and on these
occasions I was often able to remove from my aunt’s big Bible a five- or
ten-dollar note, which otherwise would have been long useless.
Now and then I utilized my opportunities at Princeton. I very much
desired certain things like well-made clothes, and for these I had to
run in debt to a tailor. When he wanted pay, and threatened to send the
bill to my father, I borrowed from two or three young Southerners; but
at last, when they became hard up, my aunt’s uncounted hoard proved a
last resource, or some rare chance in a neighboring room helped me out.
I never did look on this method as of permanent usefulness, and it was
only the temporary folly of youth.
Whatever else the pirate necessity appropriated, I took no large amount
of education, although I was fond of reading, and especially of novels,
which are, I think, very instructive to the young, especially the novels
of Smollett and Fielding.
There is, however, little need to dwell on this part of my life.
College students in those days were only boys, and boys are very strange
animals. They have instincts. They somehow get to know if a fellow does
not relate facts as they took place. I like to put it that way, because,
after all, the mode of putting things is only one of the forms of
self-defense, and is less silly than the ordinary wriggling methods
which boys employ, and which are generally useless. I was rather given
to telling large stories just for the fun of it and, I think, told them
well. But somehow I got the reputation of not being strictly definite,
and when it was meant to indicate this belief they had an ill-mannered
way of informing you. This consisted in two or three fellows standing up
and shuffling noisily with their feet on the floor. When first I heard
this I asked innocently what it meant, and was told it was the noise
of the bearers’ feet coming to take away Ananias. This was considered a
fine joke.
During my junior year I became unpopular, and as I was very cautious, I
cannot see why. At last, being hard up, I got to be foolishly reckless.
But why dwell on the failures of immaturity?
The causes which led to my leaving Nassau Hall were not, after all,
the mischievous outbreaks in which college lads indulge. Indeed, I have
never been guilty of any of those pieces of wanton wickedness which
injure the feelings of others while they lead to no useful result.
When I left to return home, I set myself seriously to reflect upon the
necessity of greater care in following out my inclinations, and from
that time forward I have steadily avoided, whenever it was possible, the
vulgar vice of directly possessing myself of objects to which I could
show no legal title. My father was indignant at the results of my
college career; and, according to my aunt, his shame and sorrow had
some effect in shortening his life. My sister believed my account of
the matter. It ended in my being used for a year as an assistant in the
shop, and in being taught to ring bells--a fine exercise, but not
proper work for a man of refinement. My father died while training his
bell-ringers in the Oxford triple bob--broke a blood-vessel somewhere.
How I could have caused that I do not see.
I was now about nineteen years old, and, as I remember, a middle-sized,
well-built young fellow, with large eyes, a slight mustache, and, I have
been told, with very good manners and a somewhat humorous turn. Besides
these advantages, my guardian held in trust for me about two thousand
dollars. After some consultation between us, it was resolved that I
should study medicine. This conclusion was reached nine years before the
Rebellion broke out, and after we had settled, for the sake of economy,
in Woodbury, New Jersey. From this time I saw very little of my deaf
aunt or of Peninnah. I was resolute to rise in the world, and not to be
weighted by relatives who were without my tastes and my manners.
I set out for Philadelphia, with many good counsels from my aunt and
guardian. I look back upon this period as a turning-point of my life.
I had seen enough of the world already to know that if you can succeed
without exciting suspicion, it is by far the pleasantest way; and I
really believe that if I had not been endowed with so fatal a liking
for all the good things of life I might have lived along as reputably as
most men. This, however, is, and always has been, my difficulty, and
I suppose that I am not responsible for the incidents to which it gave
rise. Most men have some ties in life, but I have said I had none which
held me. Peninnah cried a good deal when we parted, and this, I think,
as I was still young, had a very good effect in strengthening my
resolution to do nothing which could get me into trouble. The janitor
of the college to which I went directed me to a boarding-house, where
I engaged a small third-story room, which I afterwards shared with Mr.
Chaucer of Georgia. He pronounced it, as I remember, “Jawjah.”
In this very remarkable abode I spent the next two winters, and finally
graduated, along with two hundred more, at the close of my two years of
study. I should previously have been one year in a physician’s office as
a student, but this regulation was very easily evaded. As to my studies,
the less said the better. I attended the quizzes, as they call them,
pretty closely, and, being of a quick and retentive memory, was thus
enabled to dispense with some of the six or seven lectures a day which
duller men found it necessary to follow.
Dissecting struck me as a rather nasty business for a gentleman, and on
this account I did just as little as was absolutely essential. In fact,
if a man took his tickets and paid the dissection fees, nobody troubled
himself as to whether or not he did any more than this. A like evil
existed at the graduation: whether you squeezed through or passed with
credit was a thing which was not made public, so that I had absolutely
nothing to stimulate my ambition. I am told that it is all very
different to-day.
The astonishment with which I learned of my success was shared by the
numerous Southern gentlemen who darkened the floors and perfumed with
tobacco the rooms of our boarding-house. In my companions, during
the time of my studies so called, as in other matters of life, I was
somewhat unfortunate. All of them were Southern gentlemen, with
more money than I had. Many of them carried great sticks, usually
sword-canes, and some bowie-knives or pistols; also, they delighted in
swallow-tailed coats, long hair, broad-brimmed felt hats, and very tight
boots. I often think of these gentlemen with affectionate interest, and
wonder how many are lying under the wheat-fields of Virginia. One could
see them any day sauntering along with their arms over their companions’
shoulders, splendidly indifferent to the ways of the people about them.
They hated the “Nawth” and cursed the Yankees, and honestly believed
that the leanest of them was a match for any half a dozen of the
bulkiest of Northerners. I must also do them the justice to say that
they were quite as ready to fight as to brag, which, by the way, is no
meager statement. With these gentry--for whom I retain a respect which
filled me with regret at the recent course of events--I spent a good
deal of my large leisure. The more studious of both sections called us
a hard crowd. What we did, or how we did it, little concerns me here,
except that, owing to my esteem for chivalric blood and breeding, I was
led into many practices and excesses which cost my guardian and myself
a good deal of money. At the close of my career as a student I found
myself aged twenty-one years, and the owner of some seven hundred
dollars--the rest of my small estate having disappeared variously within
the last two years. After my friends had gone to their homes in the
South I began to look about me for an office, and finally settled upon
very good rooms in one of the down-town localities of the Quaker City.
I am not specific as to the number and street, for reasons which may
hereafter appear. I liked the situation on various accounts. It had
been occupied by a doctor; the terms were reasonable; and it lay on the
skirts of a good neighborhood, while below it lived a motley population,
among which I expected to get my first patients and such fees as were to
be had. Into this new home I moved my medical text-books, a few bones,
and myself. Also, I displayed in the window a fresh sign, upon which was
distinctly to be read:
DR. E. SANDERAFT. Office hours, 8 to 9 A.M., 7 to 9 P.M.
I felt now that I had done my fair share toward attaining a virtuous
subsistence, and so I waited tranquilly, and without undue enthusiasm,
to see the rest of the world do its part in the matter. Meanwhile I
read up on all sorts of imaginable cases, stayed at home all through my
office hours, and at intervals explored the strange section of the town
which lay to the south of my office. I do not suppose there is anything
like it else where. It was then filled with grog-shops, brothels,
slop-shops, and low lodging-houses. You could dine for a penny on soup
made from the refuse meats of the rich, gathered at back gates by a
horde of half-naked children, who all told varieties of one woeful tale.
Here, too, you could be drunk for five cents, and be lodged for three,
with men, women, and children of all colors lying about you. It was this
hideous mixture of black and white and yellow wretchedness which made
the place so peculiar. The blacks predominated, and had mostly
that swollen, reddish, dark skin, the sign in this race of habitual
drunkenness. Of course only the lowest whites were here--rag-pickers,
pawnbrokers, old-clothes men, thieves, and the like. All of this, as it
came before me, I viewed with mingled disgust and philosophy. I hated
filth, but I understood that society has to stand on somebody, and I was
only glad that I was not one of the undermost and worst-squeezed bricks.
I can hardly believe that I waited a month without having been called
upon by a single patient. At last a policeman on our beat brought me a
fancy man with a dog-bite. This patient recommended me to his brother,
the keeper of a small pawnbroking-shop, and by very slow degrees I began
to get stray patients who were too poor to indulge in up-town doctors.
I found the police very useful acquaintances; and, by a drink or a cigar
now and then, I got most of the cases of cut heads and the like at the
next station-house. These, however, were the aristocrats of my practice;
the bulk of my patients were soap-fat men, rag-pickers, oystermen,
hose-house bummers, and worse, with other and nameless trades, men and
women, white, black, or mulatto. How they got the levies, fips, and
quarters with which I was reluctantly paid, I do not know; that, indeed,
was none of my business. They expected to pay, and they came to me in
preference to the dispensary doctor, two or three squares away, who
seemed to me to spend most of his days in the lanes and alleys about us.
Of course he received no pay except experience, since the dispensaries
in the Quaker City, as a rule, do not give salaries to their doctors;
and the vilest of the poor prefer a “pay doctor” to one of these
disinterested gentlemen, who cannot be expected to give their best
brains for nothing, when at everybody’s beck and call. I am told, indeed
I know, that most young doctors do a large amount of poor practice, as
it is called; but, for my own part, I think it better for both parties
when the doctor insists upon some compensation being made to him. This
has been usually my own custom, and I have not found reason to regret
it.
Notwithstanding my strict attention to my own interests, I have been
rather sorely dealt with by fate upon several occasions, where, so far
as I could see, I was vigilantly doing everything in my power to keep
myself out of trouble or danger. I may as well relate one of them,
merely to illustrate of how little value a man’s intellect may be when
fate and the prejudices of the mass of men are against him.
One evening, late, I myself answered a ring at the bell, and found a
small black boy on the steps, a shoeless, hatless little wretch, curled
darkness for hair, and teeth like new tombstones. It was pretty cold,
and he was relieving his feet by standing first on one and then on the
other. He did not wait for me to speak.
“Hi, sah, Missey Barker she say to come quick away, sah, to Numbah 709
Bedford street.”
The locality did not look like pay, but it is hard to say in this
quarter, because sometimes you found a well-to-do “brandy-snifter”
(local for gin-shop) or a hard-working “leather-jeweler” (ditto for
shoemaker), with next door, in a house better or worse, dozens of human
rats for whom every police trap in the city was constantly set.
With a doubt in my mind as to whether I should find a good patient or
some dirty nigger, I sought the place to which I had been directed.
I did not like its looks; but I blundered up an alley and into a back
room, where I fell over somebody, and was cursed and told to lie down
and keep easy, or somebody, meaning the man stumbled over, would make
me. At last I lit on a staircase which led into the alley, and, after
much useless inquiry, got as high as the garret. People hereabout did
not know one another, or did not want to know, so that it was of little
avail to ask questions. At length I saw a light through the cracks in
the attic door, and walked in. To my amazement, the first person I saw
was a woman of about thirty-five, in pearl-gray Quaker dress--one of
your quiet, good-looking people. She was seated on a stool beside a
straw mattress upon which lay a black woman. There were three others
crowded close around a small stove, which was red-hot--an unusual
spectacle in this street. Altogether a most nasty den.
As I came in, the little Quaker woman got up and said: “I took the
liberty of sending for thee to look at this poor woman. I am afraid she
has the smallpox. Will thee be so kind as to look at her?” And with this
she held down the candle toward the bed.
“Good gracious!” I said hastily, seeing how the creature was speckled “I
didn’t understand this, or I would not have come. I have important cases
which I cannot subject to the risk of contagion. Best let her alone,
miss,” I added, “or send her to the smallpox hospital.”
Upon my word, I was astonished at the little woman’s indignation. She
said just those things which make you feel as if somebody had been
calling you names or kicking you--Was I really a doctor? and so on.
It did not gain by being put in the ungrammatical tongue of Quakers.
However, I never did fancy smallpox, and what could a fellow get by
doctoring wretches like these? So I held my tongue and went away. About
a week afterwards I met Evans, the dispensary man, a very common fellow,
who was said to be frank.
“Helloa!” says he. “Doctor, you made a nice mistake about that darky
at No. 709 Bedford street the other night. She had nothing but measles,
after all.”
“Of course I knew,” said I, laughing; “but you don’t think I was going
in for dispensary trash, do you?”
“I should think not,” said Evans.
I learned afterwards that this Miss Barker had taken an absurd fancy
to the man because he had doctored the darky and would not let the
Quakeress pay him. The end was, when I wanted to get a vacancy in the
Southwark Dispensary, where they do pay the doctors, Miss Barker was
malignant enough to take advantage of my oversight by telling the whole
story to the board; so that Evans got in, and I was beaten.
You may be pretty sure that I found rather slow the kind of practice I
have described, and began to look about for chances of bettering myself.
In this sort of locality rather risky cases turned up now and then;
and as soon as I got to be known as a reliable man, I began to get the
peculiar sort of practice I wanted. Notwithstanding all my efforts, I
found myself, at the close of three years, with all my means spent, and
just able to live meagerly from hand to mouth, which by no means suited
a man of my refined tastes.
Once or twice I paid a visit to my aunt, and was able to secure moderate
aid by overhauling her concealed hoardings. But as to these changes of
property I was careful, and did not venture to secure the large amount
I needed. As to the Bible, it was at this time hidden, and I judged
it, therefore, to be her chief place of deposit. Banks she utterly
distrusted.
Six months went by, and I was worse off than ever--two months in arrears
of rent, and numerous other debts to cigar-shops and liquor-dealers. Now
and then some good job, such as a burglar with a cut head, helped me
for a while; but, on the whole, I was like Slider Downeyhylle in Neal’s
“Charcoal Sketches,” and kept going “downer and downer” the more I tried
not to. Something had to be done.
It occurred to me, about this time, that if I moved into a more genteel
locality I might get a better class of patients, and yet keep the best
of those I now had. To do this it was necessary to pay my rent, and
the more so because I was in a fair way to have no house at all over my
head. But here fortune interposed. I was caught in a heavy rainstorm on
Seventh Street, and ran to catch an omnibus. As I pulled open the door
I saw behind me the Quaker woman, Miss Barker. I laughed and jumped in.
She had to run a little before the ‘bus again stopped. She got pretty
wet. An old man in the corner, who seemed in the way of taking charge of
other people’s manners, said to me: “Young man, you ought to be ashamed
to get in before the lady, and in this pour, too!”
I said calmly, “But you got in before her.”
He made no reply to this obvious fact, as he might have been in the
bus a half-hour. A large, well-dressed man near by said, with a laugh,
“Rather neat, that,” and, turning, tried to pull up a window-sash. In
the effort something happened, and he broke the glass, cutting his
hand in half a dozen places. While he was using several quite profane
phrases, I caught his hand and said, “I am a surgeon,” and tied my
handkerchief around the bleeding palm.
The guardian of manners said, “I hope you are not much hurt, but there
was no reason why you should swear.”
On this my patient said, “Go to ----,” which silenced the monitor.
I explained to the wounded man that the cuts should be looked after at
once. The matter was arranged by our leaving the ‘bus, and, as the rain
had let up, walking to his house. This was a large and quite luxurious
dwelling on Fourth street. There I cared for his wounds, which, as I had
informed him, required immediate attention. It was at this time summer,
and his wife and niece, the only other members of his family, were
absent. On my second visit I made believe to remove some splinters of
glass which I brought with me. He said they showed how shamefully thin
was that omnibus window-pane. To my surprise, my patient, at the end of
the month,--for one wound was long in healing,--presented me with one
hundred dollars. This paid my small rental, and as Mr. Poynter allowed
me to refer to him, I was able to get a better office and bedroom on
Spruce street. I saw no more of my patient until winter, although I
learned that he was a stock-broker, not in the very best repute, but of
a well-known family.
Meanwhile my move had been of small use. I was wise enough, however, to
keep up my connection with my former clients, and contrived to live. It
was no more than that. One day in December I was overjoyed to see
Mr. Poynter enter. He was a fat man, very pale, and never, to my
remembrance, without a permanent smile. He had very civil ways, and now
at once I saw that he wanted something.
I hated the way that man saw through me. He went on without hesitation,
taking me for granted. He began by saying he had confidence in my
judgment, and when a man says that you had better look out. He said he
had a niece who lived with him, a brother’s child; that she was out of
health and ought not to marry, which was what she meant to do. She was
scared about her health, because she had a cough, and had lost a brother
of consumption. I soon came to understand that, for reasons unknown
to me, my friend did not wish his niece to marry. His wife, he also
informed me, was troubled as to the niece’s health. Now, he said, he
wished to consult me as to what he should do. I suspected at once that
he had not told me all.
I have often wondered at the skill with which I managed this rather
delicate matter. I knew I was not well enough known to be of direct
use, and was also too young to have much weight. I advised him to get
Professor C.
Then my friend shook his head. He said in reply, “But suppose, doctor,
he says there is nothing wrong with the girl?”
Then I began to understand him.
“Oh,” I said, “you get a confidential written opinion from him. You can
make it what you please when you tell her.”
He said no. It would be best for me to ask the professor to see Miss
Poynter; might mention my youth, and so on, as a reason. I was to get
his opinion in writing.
“Well?” said I.
“After that I want you to write me a joint opinion to meet the case--all
the needs of the case, you see.”
I saw, but hesitated as to how much would make it worth while to pull
his hot chestnuts out of the fire--one never knows how hot the chestnuts
are.
Then he said, “Ever take a chance in stocks?”
I said, “No.”
He said that he would lend me a little money and see what he could do
with it. And here was his receipt from me for one thousand dollars, and
here, too, was my order to buy shares of P. T. Y. Would I please to Sign
it? I did.
I was to call in two days at his house, and meantime I could think it
over. It seemed to me a pretty weak plan. Suppose the young woman--well,
supposing is awfully destructive of enterprise; and as for me, I had
only to misunderstand the professor’s opinion. I went to the house, and
talked to Mr. Poynter about his gout. Then Mrs. Poynter came in, and
began to lament her niece’s declining health. After that I saw Miss
Poynter. There is a kind of innocent-looking woman who knows no more of
the world than a young chicken, and is choke-full of emotions. I saw it
would be easy to frighten her. There are some instruments anybody can
get any tune they like out of. I was very grave, and advised her to see
the professor. And would I write to ask him, said Mr. Poynter. I said I
would.
As I went out Mr. Poynter remarked: “You will clear some four hundred
easy. Write to the professor. Bring my receipt to the office next week,
and we will settle.”
We settled. I tore up his receipt and gave him one for fifteen hundred
dollars, and received in notes five hundred dollars.
In a day or so I had a note from the professor stating that Miss Poynter
was in no peril; that she was, as he thought, worried, and had only a
mild bronchial trouble. He advised me to do so-and-so, and had ventured
to reassure my young patient. Now, this was a little more than I
wanted. However, I wrote Mr. Poynter that the professor thought she had
bronchitis, that in her case tubercle would be very apt to follow,
and that at present, and until she was safe, we considered marriage
undesirable.
Mr. Poynter said it might have been put stronger, but he would make it
do. He made it. The first effect was an attack of hysterics. The final
result was that she eloped with her lover, because if she was to die,
as she wrote her aunt, she wished to die in her husband’s arms. Human
nature plus hysteria will defy all knowledge of character. This was what
our old professor of practice used to say.
Mr. Poynter had now to account for a large trust estate which had
somehow dwindled. Unhappily, princes are not the only people in whom you
must not put your trust. As to myself, Professor L. somehow got to know
the facts, and cut me dead. It was unpleasant, but I had my five hundred
dollars, and--I needed them. I do not see how I could have been more
careful.
After this things got worse. Mr. Poynter broke, and did not even pay
my last bill. I had to accept several rather doubtful cases, and once a
policeman I knew advised me that I had better be on my guard.
But, really, so long as I adhered to the common code of my profession I
was in danger of going without my dinner.
Just as I was at my worst and in despair something always turned up, but
it was sure to be risky; and now my aunt refused to see me, and Peninnah
wrote me goody-goody letters, and said Aunt Rachel had been unable to
find certain bank-notes she had hidden, and vowed I had taken them. This
Peninnah did not think possible. I agreed with her. The notes were
found somewhat later by Peninnah in the toes of a pair of my aunt’s old
slippers. Of course I wrote an indignant letter. My aunt declared that
Peninnah had stolen the notes, and restored them when they were missed.
Poor Peninnah! This did not seem to me very likely, but Peninnah did
love fine clothes.
One night, as I was debating with myself as to how I was to improve my
position, I heard a knock on my shutter, and, going to the door, let in
a broad-shouldered man with a whisky face and a great hooked nose. He
wore a heavy black beard and mustache, and looked like the wolf in the
pictures of Red Riding-hood which I had seen as a child.
“Your name’s Sanderaft?” said the man.
“Yes; that’s my name--Dr. Sanderaft.”
As he sat down he shook the snow over everything, and said coolly: “Set
down, doc; I want to talk with you.”
“What can I do for you?” said I.
The man looked around the room rather scornfully, at the same time
throwing back his coat and displaying a red neckerchief and a huge
garnet pin. “Guess you’re not overly rich,” he said.
“Not especially,” said I. “What’s that your business?”
He did not answer, but merely said, “Know Simon Stagers?”
“Can’t say I do,” said I, cautiously. Simon was a burglar who had blown
off two fingers when mining a safe. I had attended him while he was
hiding.
“Can’t say you do. Well, you can lie, and no mistake. Come, now, doc.
Simon says you’re safe, and I want to have a leetle plain talk with
you.”
With this he laid ten gold eagles on the table. I put out my hand
instinctively.
“Let ‘em alone,” cried the man, sharply. “They’re easy earned, and ten
more like ‘em.”
“For doing what?” I said.
The man paused a moment, and looked around him; next he stared at me,
and loosened his cravat with a hasty pull. “You’re the coroner,” said
he.
“I! What do you mean?”
“Yes, you’re the coroner; don’t you understand?” and so saying, he
shoved the gold pieces toward me.
“Very good,” said I; “we will suppose I’m the coroner. What next?”
“And being the coroner,” said he, “you get this note, which requests you
to call at No. 9 Blank street to examine the body of a young man which
is supposed--only supposed, you see--to have--well, to have died under
suspicious circumstances.”
“Go on,” said I.
“No,” he returned; “not till I know how you like it. Stagers and another
knows it; and it wouldn’t be very safe for you to split, besides not
making nothing out of it. But what I say is this, Do you like the
business of coroner?”
I did not like it; but just then two hundred in gold was life to me, so
I said: “Let me hear the whole of it first. I am safe.”
“That’s square enough,” said the man. “My wife’s got”--correcting
himself with a shivery shrug--“my wife had a brother that took to
cutting up rough because when I’d been up too late I handled her a
leetle hard now and again.
“Luckily he fell sick with typhoid just then--you see, he lived with
us. When he got better I guessed he’d drop all that; but somehow he was
worse than ever--clean off his head, and strong as an ox. My wife said
to put him away in an asylum. I didn’t think that would do. At last he
tried to get out. He was going to see the police about--well--the
thing was awful serious, and my wife carrying on like mad, and wanting
doctors. I had no mind to run, and something had got to be done. So
Simon Stagers and I talked it over. The end of it was, he took worse of
a sudden, and got so he didn’t know nothing. Then I rushed for a doctor.
He said it was a perforation, and there ought to have been a doctor when
he was first took sick.
“Well, the man died, and as I kept about the house, my wife had
no chance to talk. The doctor fussed a bit, but at last he gave a
certificate. I thought we were done with it. But my wife she writes
a note and gives it to a boy in the alley to put in the post. We
suspicioned her, and Stagers was on the watch. After the boy got away a
bit, Simon bribed him with a quarter to give him the note, which wasn’t
no less than a request to the coroner to come to the house to-morrow and
make an examination, as foul play was suspected--and poison.”
When the man quit talking he glared at me. I sat still. I was cold all
over. I was afraid to go on, and afraid to go back, besides which, I did
not doubt that there was a good deal of money in the case.
“Of course,” said I, “it’s nonsense; only I suppose you don’t want the
officers about, and a fuss, and that sort of thing.”
“Exactly,” said my friend. “It’s all bosh about poison. You’re the
coroner. You take this note and come to my house. Says you: ‘Mrs. File,
are you the woman that wrote this note? Because in that case I must
examine the body.’”
“I see,” said I; “she needn’t know who I am, or anything else; but if I
tell her it’s all right, do you think she won’t want to know why there
isn’t a jury, and so on?”
“Bless you,” said the man, “the girl isn’t over seventeen, and doesn’t
know no more than a baby. As we live up-town miles away, she won’t know
anything about you.”
“I’ll do it,” said I, suddenly, for, as I saw, it involved no sort of
risk; “but I must have three hundred dollars.”
“And fifty,” added the wolf, “if you do it well.”
Then I knew it was serious.
With this the man buttoned about him a shaggy gray overcoat, and took
his leave without a single word in addition.
A minute later he came back and said: “Stagers is in this business, and
I was to remind you of Lou Wilson,--I forgot that,--the woman that died
last year. That’s all.” Then he went away, leaving me in a cold sweat. I
knew now I had no choice. I understood why I had been selected.
For the first time in my life, that night I couldn’t sleep. I thought
to myself, at last, that I would get up early, pack a few clothes,
and escape, leaving my books to pay as they might my arrears of rent.
Looking out of the window, however, in the morning, I saw Stagers
prowling about the opposite pavement; and as the only exit except the
street door was an alleyway which opened along-side of the front of the
house, I gave myself up for lost. About ten o’clock I took my case
of instruments and started for File’s house, followed, as I too well
understood, by Stagers.
I knew the house, which was in a small uptown street, by its closed
windows and the craped bell, which I shuddered as I touched. However,
it was too late to draw back, and I therefore inquired for Mrs. File. A
haggard-looking young woman came down, and led me into a small parlor,
for whose darkened light I was thankful enough.
“Did you write this note?”
“I did,” said the woman, “if you’re the coroner. Joe File--he’s my
husband--he’s gone out to see about the funeral. I wish it was his, I
do.”
“What do you suspect?” said I.
“I’ll tell you,” she returned in a whisper. “I think he was made away
with. I think there was foul play. I think he was poisoned. That’s what
I think.”
“I hope you may be mistaken,” said I. “Suppose you let me see the body.”
“You shall see it,” she replied; and following her, I went up-stairs to
a front chamber, where I found the corpse.
“Get it over soon,” said the woman, with strange firmness. “If there
ain’t no murder been done I shall have to run for it; if there was”--and
her face set hard--“I guess I’ll stay.” With this she closed the door
and left me with the dead.
If I had known what was before me I never could have gone into the thing
at all. It looked a little better when I had opened a window and let in
plenty of light; for although I was, on the whole, far less afraid of
dead than living men, I had an absurd feeling that I was doing this dead
man a distinct wrong--as if it mattered to the dead, after all! When the
affair was over, I thought more of the possible consequences than of its
relation to the dead man himself; but do as I would at the time, I was
in a ridiculous funk, and especially when going through the forms of a
post-mortem examination.
I am free to confess now that I was careful not to uncover the man’s
face, and that when it was over I backed to the door and hastily escaped
from the room. On the stairs opposite to me Mrs. File was seated, with
her bonnet on and a bundle in her hand.
“Well,” said she, rising as she spoke, and with a certain eagerness in
her tone, “what killed him? Was it poison?”
“Poison, my good woman!” said I. “When a man has typhoid fever he don’t
need poison to kill him. He had a relapse, that’s all.”
“And do you mean to say he wasn’t poisoned,” said she, with more than a
trace of disappointment in her voice--“not poisoned at all?”
“No more than you are,” said I. “If I had found any signs of foul play I
should have had a regular inquest. As it is, the less said about it the
better. The fact is, it would have been much wiser to have kept quiet at
the beginning. I can’t understand why you should have troubled me about
it at all. The man had a perforation. It is common enough in typhoid.”
“That’s what the doctor said--I didn’t believe him. I guess now the
sooner I leave the better for me.”
“As to that,” I returned, “it is none of my business; but you may rest
certain about the cause of your brother’s death.”
My fears were somewhat quieted that evening when Stagers and the wolf
appeared with the remainder of the money, and I learned that Mrs. File
had fled from her home and, as File thought likely, from the city also.
A few months later File himself disappeared, and Stagers found his way
for the third time into the penitentiary. Then I felt at ease. I now
see, for my own part, that I was guilty of more than one mistake, and
that I displayed throughout a want of intelligence. I ought to have
asked more, and also might have got a good fee from Mrs. File on account
of my services as coroner. It served me, however, as a good lesson; but
it was several months before I felt quite comfortable.
Meanwhile money became scarce once more, and I was driven to my wit’s
end to devise how I should continue to live as I had done. I tried,
among other plans, that of keeping certain pills and other medicines,
which I sold to my patients; but on the whole I found it better to send
all my prescriptions to one druggist, who charged the patient ten or
twenty cents over the correct price, and handed this amount to me.
In some cases I am told the percentage is supposed to be a donation on
the part of the apothecary; but I rather fancy the patient pays for
it in the end. It is one of the absurd vagaries of the profession to
discountenance the practice I have described, but I wish, for my part,
I had never done anything more foolish or more dangerous. Of course it
inclines a doctor to change his medicines a good deal, and to order them
in large quantities, which is occasionally annoying to the poor; yet, as
I have always observed, there is no poverty as painful as your own, so
that I prefer to distribute pecuniary suffering among many rather than
to concentrate it on myself. That’s a rather neat phrase.
About six months after the date of this annoying adventure, an
incident occurred which altered somewhat, and for a time improved, my
professional position. During my morning office-hour an old woman came
in, and putting down a large basket, wiped her face with a yellow-cotton
handkerchief, and afterwards with the corner of her apron. Then she
looked around uneasily, got up, settled her basket on her arm with a
jerk which may have decided the future of an egg or two, and remarked
briskly: “Don’t see no little bottles about; got the wrong stall, I
guess. You ain’t no homeopath doctor, are you?”
With great presence of mind, I replied: “Well, ma’am, that depends upon
what you want. Some of my patients like one, and some like the other.”
I was about to add, “You pay your money and you take your choice,”
but thought better of it, and held my peace, refraining from classical
quotation.
“Being as that’s the case,” said the old lady, “I’ll just tell you my
symptoms. You said you give either kind of medicine, didn’t you?”
“Just so,” replied I.
“Clams or oysters, whichever opens most lively, as my old Joe
says--tends the oyster-stand at stall No. 9. Happen to know Joe?”
No, I did not know Joe; but what were the symptoms?
They proved to be numerous, and included a stunning in the head and a
misery in the side, with bokin after victuals.
I proceeded, of course, to apply a stethoscope over her ample bosom,
though what I heard on this and similar occasions I should find it
rather difficult to state. I remember well my astonishment in one
instance where, having unconsciously applied my instrument over a
clamorous silver watch in the watchfob of a sea-captain, I concluded for
a moment that he was suffering from a rather remarkable displacement of
the heart. As to my old lady, whose name was Checkers, and who kept an
apple-stand near by, I told her that I was out of pills just then, but
would have plenty next day. Accordingly, I proceeded to invest a small
amount at a place called a homeopathic pharmacy, which I remember amused
me immensely.
A stout little German, with great silver spectacles, sat behind a
counter containing numerous jars of white powders labeled concisely
“Lac.,” “Led.,” “Onis.,” “Op.,” “Puls.,” etc., while behind him were
shelves filled with bottles of what looked like minute white shot.
“I want some homeopathic medicine,” said I.
“Vat kindt?” said my friend. “Vat you vants to cure!”
I explained at random that I wished to treat diseases in general.
“Vell, ve gifs you a case, mit a pook,” and thereon produced a large box
containing bottles of small pills and powders, labeled variously with
the names of the diseases, so that all you required was to use the
headache or colic bottle in order to meet the needs of those particular
maladies.