"They're fools, they are, but I guess I ought to stop him."
And just as he said this, Dr. Philemon saw him in the crowd. The
Doctor must have felt hurt because the Toyman hadn't bought any of his
bottles, for he pointed a finger with a great long nail right at the
Toyman and said:
"Yuh sah, aren't yuh willin' to be cuhed?"
Now the Toyman was forever saying funny and surprising things, but he
never said anything funnier and more surprising in his life than what
he told that patent-medicine man.
"No, thank you, Mr. Steve Jorkins"--that's just what he called him,
not Dr. Pipp at all--"that medicine of yours isn't magic. It wouldn't
even cure a chicken of the pip."
Then all the men crowded around the Toyman, calling him by his old
name.
"Do you know him, Frank? Is he fooling us?"
"You bet he is," replied the Toyman, "and he's got all your
hard-earned money in his jeans."
Then he called to the boys to "come quick," for he thought there would
be trouble, and there was.
For all those men and boys in the crowd climbed up on the wagon--and
they grabbed Dr. Philemon Pipp by his fine fur collar--and they made
him give back their money, every last cent of it. Then, while some of
them held him, the others smashed all his bottles until the black
juice ran over the tailboard like a dark waterfall, and they hurled
his high silk hat on the top of the lamp-post, yelling,--
"You git out of here, quick! Come, skedaddle!"
And since, in his fright, he didn't "skedaddle" fast enough to suit
them, they threw beets and all sorts of vegetables at him, vegetables
that had been ripe a very long time. So at last the tall Doctor with
his fine fur collar--but without his silk hat--hitched up his horses
with trembling fingers, and he and his helper Jake and the Red Indian
drove out of town "lickety-split." You could hear the wagon-wheels
rattling away long after he turned the corner.
Then the Toyman "tlucked" to Hal and they drove off, too.
"How did you know him?" Jehosophat asked, after they had trotted a
little way.
"Oh, I used to know him out West. He didn't remember me, but I did
_him_. I bought one of his bottles once."
"Is he a robber?"
"Well, he calls himself a patent-medicine man, but I'd call him a
'fakir.'"
"What's a 'fakir,' Toyman?" put in Marmaduke, very sleepily.
"Oh, a man who pretends to be something he isn't, and who sells folks
something that's no good, and takes all their money for nothing.
But"--and he laughed--"some folks like to be fooled."
"It's too bad!" sighed Marmaduke.
"What's too bad, sonny?"
"Why, to smash all those big bottles and waste all that lovely
licorice water."
But he soon forgot all about the bottles and the licorice water, and
the bad Doctor Pipp with the tall hat and the fur collar, and the Red
Indian, too, for, as they rode along by the River, the Moon was up,
and seemed to be riding along with them--never getting ahead or
behind, just keeping even with Hal the Red Roan. And Marmaduke loved
to go riding or walking with a great yellow moon. Besides, the Toyman
told them a story, as he had promised--and a nice one it was--so the
little boy fell asleep.
But I wouldn't say that they never dreamed about that fur collar, and
the tall hat, and the Indian, and all those bottles.
It's just possible that they did.
X