nt corner, he and I would arrange the boxes
and bottles in attractive pyramids on the top of a box or a barrel,
taking as much time as possible, so as to attract the attention of the
passers-by.

Having achieved this object, the doctor would mount on a soap-box, so as
to raise himself above the crowd, and begin his harangue.

He always began gravely, and not until he had made several sales did he
venture on a joke or a witticism, although he had a plentiful stock of
cheap wit, such as crowds delight in.

Another thing: When he spoke in public he used excellent English, and
the cockney dialect entirely disappeared. He never explained this to me,
but I suppose he was like an actor on the stage when addressing a crowd.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he would say, in calm and measured tones,
"Shakespeare has said, 'Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it!' and
he was right. Medicinal drugs are pernicious, even when given by a
practiced physician, but when administered by quacks, it is little short
of murder. Now, in my medicines I do not give you strange and deadly
drugs. The articles I use are all known to you" (this was strictly
true), "the mode of preparation only being a secret. No pain, no danger
in their use, absolutely harmless to the smallest child, yet so powerful
that the most deadly ailments yield to their power."

Thus the doctor talked on for fifteen minutes, taking the crowd into his
confidence in a learned and fatherly way, until some fellow bashfully
thrust forward a coin, and then the money rolled in.

The doctor was now in his element; he was witty, he cracked jokes,
he told stories, and even indulged in snatches of song, and he rarely
failed to hold his audience until his stock was exhausted.

This operation sometimes consumed three or four hours, and sometimes his
eloquence was wasted. But at all times he was cheerful and polite, and
good and bad fortune seemed alike to him.

I thought then, and I still think, that he was a remarkable man; and I
am sure that he treated me very kindly. He paid me a very liberal salary
of ten dollars a month, and whenever he had an unusually good day, gave
me an extra dollar.

All of this money I carefully stowed away in my belt for a rainy day,
which I felt sure would come. And my experience did not deceive me.

After leaving Pennsylvania, we traveled through the small towns of Ohio
until near the middle of December, as it was a very open winter, and it
was nearly