Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

asked for the doctor to come and see Judge Banks, who, it seems, was the mayor and a mighty sick man.

“ ‘I’m no doctor,’ says I. ‘Why don’t you go and get the doctor?’

“ ‘Boss,’ says he. ‘Doc Hoskins am done gone twenty miles in de country to see some sick persons. He’s de only doctor in de town, and Massa Banks am powerful bad off. He sent me to ax you to please, suh, come.’

“ ‘As man to man,’ says I, ‘I’ll go and look him over.’ So I put a bottle of Resurrection Bitters in my pocket and goes up on the hill to the mayor’s mansion, the finest house in town, with a mansard roof and two cast iron dogs on the lawn.

“This Mayor Banks was in bed all but his whiskers and feet. He was making internal noises that would have had everybody in San Francisco hiking for the parks. A young man was standing by the bed holding a cup of water.

“ ‘Doc,’ says the Mayor, ‘I’m awful sick. I’m about to die. Can’t you do nothing for me?’

“ ‘Mr. Mayor,’ says I, ‘I’m not a regular preordained disciple of S. Q. Lapius. I never took a course in a medical college,’ says I. ‘I’ve just come as a fellow man to see if I could be off assistance.’

“ ‘I’m deeply obliged,’ says he. ‘Doc Waugh-hoo, this is my nephew, Mr. Biddle. He has tried to alleviate my distress, but without success. Oh, Lordy! Ow-ow-ow!!’ he sings out.

“I nods at Mr. Biddle and sets down by the bed and feels the mayor’s pulse. ‘Let me see your liver⁠—your tongue, I mean,’ says I. Then I turns up the lids of his eyes and looks close that the pupils of ’em.

“ ‘How long have you been sick?’ I asked.

“ ‘I was taken down⁠—ow-ouch⁠—last night,’ says the Mayor. ‘Gimme something for it, doc, won’t you?’

“ ‘Mr. Fiddle,’ says I, ‘raise the window shade a bit, will you?’

“ ‘Biddle,’ says the young man. ‘Do you feel like you could eat some ham and eggs, Uncle James?’

“ ‘Mr. Mayor,’ says I, after laying my ear to his right shoulder blade and listening, ‘you’ve got a bad attack of super-inflammation of the right clavicle of the harpsichord!’

“ ‘Good Lord!’ says he, with a groan, ‘Can’t you rub something on it, or set it or anything?’

“I picks up my hat and starts for the door.

“ ‘You ain’t going, doc?’ says the Mayor with a howl. ‘You ain’t going away and leave me to die with this⁠—superfluity of the clapboards, are you?’

“ ‘Common humanity, Dr. Whoa-ha,’ says Mr. Biddle, ‘ought to prevent your deserting a fellow-human in distress.’

“ ‘Dr. Waugh-hoo, when you get through plowing,’ says I. And then I walks back to the bed and throws back my long hair.

“ ‘Mr. Mayor,’ says I, ‘there is only one hope for you. Drugs will do you no good. But there is another power higher yet, although drugs are high enough,’ says I.

“ ‘And what is that?’ says he.

“ ‘Scientific demonstrations,’ says I. ‘The triumph of mind over sarsaparilla. The belief that there is no pain and sickness except what is produced when we ain’t feeling well. Declare yourself in arrears. Demonstrate.’

“ ‘What is this paraphernalia you speak of, Doc?’ says the Mayor. ‘You ain’t a Socialist, are you?’

“ ‘I am speaking,’ says I, ‘of the great doctrine of psychic financiering⁠—of the enlightened school of long-distance, sub-conscientious treatment of fallacies and meningitis⁠—of that wonderful indoor sport known as personal magnetism.’

“ ‘Can you work it, doc?’ asks the Mayor.

“ ‘I’m one of the Sole Sanhedrims and Ostensible Hooplas of the Inner Pulpit,’ says I. ‘The lame talk and the blind rubber whenever I make a pass at ’em. I am a medium, a coloratura hypnotist and a spirituous control. It was only through me at the recent séances at Ann Arbor that the late president of the Vinegar Bitters Company could revisit the earth to communicate with his sister Jane. You see me peddling medicine on the street,’ says I, ‘to the poor. I don’t practice personal magnetism on them. I do not drag it in the dust,’ says I, ‘because they haven’t got the dust.’

“ ‘Will you treat my case?’ asks the Mayor.

“ ‘Listen,’ says I. ‘I’ve had a good deal of trouble with medical societies everywhere I’ve been. I don’t practice medicine. But, to save your life, I’ll give you the psychic treatment if you’ll agree as mayor not to push the license question.’

“ ‘Of course I will,’ says he. ‘And now get to work, doc, for them pains are coming on again.’

“ ‘My fee will be $250.00, cure guaranteed in two treatments,’ says I.

“ ‘All right,’ says the Mayor. ‘I’ll pay it. I guess my life’s worth that much.’

“I sat down by the bed and looked him straight in the eye.

“ ‘Now,’ says I, ‘get your mind off the disease. You ain’t sick. You haven’t got a heart or a clavicle or a funny bone or brains or anything. You haven’t got any pain. Declare error. Now you feel the pain that you didn’t have leaving, don’t you?’

“ ‘I do feel some little better, doc,’ says the Mayor, ‘darned if I don’t. Now state a few lies about my not having this swelling in my left side, and I think I could be propped up and have some sausage and buckwheat cakes.’

“I made a few passes with my hands.

“ ‘Now,’ says I, ‘the inflammation’s gone. The right lobe of the perihelion has subsided. You’re getting sleepy. You can’t hold your eyes open any longer. For the present the disease is checked. Now, you are asleep.’

“The Mayor shut his eyes slowly and began to snore.

“ ‘You observe, Mr. Tiddle,’ says I, ‘the wonders of modern science.’

“ ‘Biddle,’ says he, ‘When will you give uncle the rest of the treatment, Dr. Pooh-pooh?’

“ ‘Waugh-hoo,’ says I. ‘I’ll come back at eleven tomorrow. When he wakes up give him eight drops of turpentine and three pounds of steak. Good morning.’

“The next morning I was back on time. ‘Well, Mr. Riddle,’ says I, when he opened the bedroom door, ‘and how is uncle this morning?’

“ ‘He seems much better,’ says the young man.

“The mayor’s color and pulse was fine. I gave