After a little time, however, the Doctor looked pretty sharply at Bangs, and suddenly asked: "Well, who are you, anyhow?"
"Who am I?" returned Bangs smilingly, "well, to be frank, I am Professor Owen, of the Indiana State University." Bangs never blushed at the libel on the kind old man bearing that name and t.i.tle, and continued, "It is our vacation now, and I am travelling a little in the East investigating this subject. My brother is an enthusiastic believer in it, but I wished other testimony."
The Doctor seemed to think that the Professor took to the brandy and cigars quite too familiarly for an educator, but the explanation satisfied him, and he asked: "Professor, you want the whole truth, don"t you?"
"Nothing but the truth," responded Bangs.
Doctor Hubbard blew out a long series of rings and expressively followed it with "Humbug!"
"It can"t be possible," persisted Bangs.
"It oughtn"t to be possible," urged the Doctor, "for a man of your probable talent and position to be engaged in investigating what one visit to any one of us should show to be the most infernal fraud ever practised upon the public!" said the Doctor heatedly.
Bangs expressed himself as surprised beyond measure.
"Well," continued the Doctor earnestly, "you came to me like a man, didn"t you?"
Bangs a.s.sured him that he was quite right.
"And you came fair and square, without any ifs and ands, didn"t you?"
"All of that," responded Bangs.
"And," continued the Doctor helping himself to the brandy, then excusing himself and pushing it towards Bangs, who partook sparingly, "you didn"t want any fortune told, or predictions, or horoscopes, or any other nonsense?"
"Exactly," said Bangs.
"And you said you"d pay me liberally for information, didn"t you?"
"Yes, and I"ll be as good as my word," replied the a.s.sumed professor.
"Well, then," continued the Doctor in a burst of good feeling, brandy and honesty, "you see in me an unsuccessful physician, a disciple of aesculapius without followers. I graduated with high honors, hung out my sign, sharpened my tools, moulded my pills, drank a toast to disease, but waited in vain for patronage. As this became monotonous," continued the Doctor, taking another pull at the brandy bottle, then wiping the mouth and pa.s.sing it to Mr. Bangs, who excused himself, "I glided into a "specialist." It required too much money to advertise, and the papers slashed me villainously besides. _Then_ I became a Spiritualist--it"s the record of every one of us. You can see," and the Doctor waved his hand towards the cosy appointments in a satisfied way, "I am pretty comfortable now."
"Yes, quite comfortable," said Bangs, wondering what the Doctor was driving at.
"So I am an enthusiastic Spiritualist," resumed the happy physician, "for its profession has provided me with necessities, comforts, and even luxuries."
"Do you really effect any of the marvellous cures you advertise?"
"Most a.s.suredly," he replied.
"And may I ask how?" interrogated Mr. Bangs.
"In the good old-fashioned way--salts, senna, calomel, and the blue-pill," said the Doctor, laughing heartily.
"And is not the aid of the spirits essential to your cures?"
"A belief, or _faith_, that such an agency is used, does the whole thing, Professor."
"And is there no such thing?" persisted Bangs.
"Just as much of it as there is faith in it; no more and no less."
"Then the whole thing"s a humbug, as you say?"
"Just as thoroughly as is that woman," said the Doctor stoutly, pointing to Mrs. Winslow, who at that moment was seen in the street below, being driven towards the suburbs in a neat phaeton.
Bangs, becoming suddenly interested, though repressing himself, carelessly asked, "Who is she?"
Here the Doctor executed a grimace which might mean a good deal, or nothing at all, and said tersely: "She"s a bouncer; don"t you know her?"
"No."
"Why, that"s Mrs. Winslow, old Lyons" soothing syrup; and old Lyon"s one of the children--"teething,"" added the Doctor with a hearty laugh.
"But she"s a tigress!"
Mr. Bangs leaned out of the window, took a good look at the tigress, and then, as if endeavoring to recollect some former occurrence, said: "I believe I have seen her somewhere before."
"Quite so, quite so; undoubtedly you have."
"And I think in the West, too," replied Mr. Bangs, trying hard to remember, and handing the doctor a fresh cigar.
"Exactly--Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville--everywhere, in fact. One might call her a social floater, and not be far out of the way either. She used to live at Terre Haute."
"Terre Haute? Why, of course! I knew I had seen her somewhere."
"Yes, she lived a few miles out, up the Wabash river, for years. Her husband"s name was Oxford, or Hosford, or something of the kind."
"Yes?" said Bangs.
"Yes," replied the Doctor; "I didn"t know her personally, but I knew _of_ her there. That"s where she first went off the hook--and--and became one of us."
"Is she a remarkable character?" asked Mr. Bangs.
"A remarkable character? Why, sir, she"s a wonderful woman--a perfect Satan. I wouldn"t have her get after me," said the Doctor, shaking his head protestingly "for ten thousand dollars! Why, sir, that woman has ruined more men and broken up more families than you could count."
"And is _she_, too, a spiritualist?" asked Mr. Bangs.
"A spiritualist? Why, of course she is; and, what is more, I sometimes think she really believes in her own mummeries."
"What has become of her family?" asked Bangs.
"Oh, gone to the devil, I presume, just like everybody she has had anything to do with--just as old Lyon is certain to do, too."
"Then this Oxford or Hosford is not living at Terre Haute now?"
"Couldn"t tell you that," replied the Doctor; and then, suddenly returning to the subject and putting the brandy-bottle into a little closet with a slam as footsteps were heard coming up the stairs, "can I be of any further service to you?"
Mr. Bangs thought not, handed the good Doctor a five-dollar bill while remarking that he would call again, both of which evidences of good feeling pleased the latter immensely, and took his departure quite well pleased with the result of his inquiries into the wonderful subject of modern Spiritualism.