Mr. Dayton, vocalist, told me of a fellow who cut a swell in various
capacities a few years ago. He first knew him as a fiddler at fairs. The
next time he turned up was under the following circumstances:--
"With Madam L. and some other renowned vocalist, he was giving concerts,
when one day their pianist was taken suddenly sick. Madam was in great
trepidation.
[Illustration: THE MUSICAL DOCTOR.]
"'What shall I do? The concert cannot be postponed, and we cannot sing
unless we have an accompaniment,' exclaimed the lady.
"I looked about, made some inquiry,--it was in a small town,--but no
competent piano player could be found.
"'We must abandon the concert,' I said, which seemed inevitable, when
there came a sharp knock at the door.
"'Come in,' I called.
"The door opened, and instead of a servant, as I had expected, there
appeared a tall, stout specimen of the _genus homo_, with large black
eyes, and long, dark hair flowing down on to his shoulders, making his
best bow, and what he doubtless intended as his sweetest smile.
"I offered him a chair, and inquired how I could serve him.
"'You want a piano player?'
"'Yes.'
"'Well, I will undertake to assist you in your strait. Allow me to see
your programme,' he continued, very patronizingly, waiting for us to make
no reply whatever.
"'Are you--that is, do you play rapidly, and at sight?' asked madam.
"He replied only by a gesture, a sort of pitiful contempt for the
ignorance of any person who should ask _him_ such a question....
"Half past seven came, and we went on the stage. I do not know what the
fellow's prelude was; I was otherwise engaged; but his accompaniments were
made up, and after he had heard the note sung to which he should have
accompanied,--O, it was a horrid jargon, a consecutive blast of discords,
a tempest of incomprehensibleness.
[Illustration: ENTHUSIASM.]
"Madam caught her breath at the first pausing-place, and signalled him to
stop. He took a side glance at her, misinterpreted her, and played on the
louder. It became ludicrous in the extreme. He played the minor strains,
or what should have been minor, in the major key. He only stopped when he
saw us leave the stage. The audience cheered. He took it all as a
compliment to himself as a pianist, stopped, and made his most profound
obeisance to the house. They laughed and cheered the harder. He mistook it
for an _encore_, bowed again, and returned to the piano. Then the house
came down. They stamped, they laughed, they shouted. The boys in the
gallery cat-called; the building fairly shook. I ran back to see what it
was all about, and there was the pianist (?) beating furiously at the
keys, the perspiration pouring in streams from his face. But his playing
could only be _seen_ to be appreciated; it could not be heard for the
stamping of the audience. He finally desisted, and with repeated halts and
smiles, he bowed himself off the stage.
"His grand _debut_ and retirement upon the stage occurred the same night.
Madam would not permit him to go on again, and we sang the duets from
---- without accompaniment. I think the fellow knew nothing of music; he
had 'cheeked' it right through.
"Perhaps it was two years afterwards--I was staying at the B. Hotel,
Maine--when I heard a deal of talk about a great doctor then in town.
After dinner the first day, I noticed a man sauntering leisurely from the
dining-hall in embroidered slippers, white silk stockings, black pants,
gaudy dressing-gown, with long hair falling down over his shoulders. I
thought I recognized that face. I approached him after a while, and called
him by name.
"'What? Why, I think you are mistaken. I do not know you, sir,' he
stammered; and then I knew he had recognized me.
"'O, yes; I am Dayton. You remember you were our pianist once in a strait,
in S.'
"'O, ah! Come up to my room,' he said, leading the way.
"I followed, when he told me he was doing a good thing at the practice of
medicine about the principal towns of the state, and begged I would say
nothing about his former occupation. He stated to me that he had been to
Europe, and had been studying medicine meantime, which I have since
ascertained was entirely untrue."
And this was the fellow over whom the town was running wild.
The idea of some men trying to become good physicians is as ridiculously
absurd as Horace Greeley's farming, or trying to ascertain if "cundurango
is explosive." The requisite qualities are not in them. They may keep
along a few years, or possibly, in communities where there is no
competition, succeed in making the people believe they are as good as the
common run, and thus succeed on brass instead of brains.
Some of these brainless travelling impostors employ a female or two to
precede them from place to place, and make diligent inquiry when the great
doctor who performed such marvellous cures in some adjoining town
mentioned was coming there. Thus putting it in the shape of an inquiry, it
was less likely to excite suspicion.
Two females--one an elderly, lady-like looking woman, the other younger,
and anything but lady-like--travelled for a doctor, on a salary, during
the summer and autumn of 1868. A lady whose occupation took her from town
to town, seeing the two females at various hotels where the doctor was
advertised, inveigled the younger one into the confession, in her bad
temper, and thus I got my evidence. Another travels on his hair; another
on his face; and a fourth on his free advice and treatment; while a fifth
succeeds by absurdity of dress.
[Illustration]