"I was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, and also at the famous universities of Leyden, Oxford, Pavia and Heidelberg. At these great seats of learning I took all the degrees which it was possible to take, while still quite young, and my wisdom became so renowned that elderly professors travelled from such distant cities as Danzig, Palermo and Madrid to hold converse with me.
"Having completed my studies I spent twenty years in travelling the world in search of medicines and remedies so far unknown in Europe. From the Moorish doctors of the Orient I learned the secrets by which the ladies of the Great Turk's harem preserve their beauty from decay for almost unbelievable periods, so that at the age of sixty they are no less desirable than when at seventeen they first attracted the notice of their munificent master. Journeying on to Hind, I traversed the empire of the Grand Mogul from end to end, studying the methods by which the fakirs prolong their lives to the span of three-hundred years, as did the Patriarchs in holy writ, and are still capable of begetting a child upon a virgin when two-hundred and fifty years of age.
"But think not that my search for the secrets of healing, longevity, beauty and vigour have been confined only to Europe and the East. I have also visited the Americas, where I learned of the Red men how to seal open wounds by fire almost painlessly, and to cure the pox by a decoction made from the bark of a tree that grows only on the tops of the Andes mountains. In short, I am the living compendium of all knowledge concerning bodily ailments and the satisfaction of physical desire.
"Yet, lest you may think me boastful I will freely confess that there is one thing I cannot do. I am an honest man and would never seek to deceive so distinguished and critical an audience. Death is still the master of us all, and although I can prolong life I cannot do so indefinitely. It is your great misfortune, as it is also mine, that although I once possessed a rare parchment on which an Atlantian alchemist had inscribed the method of distilling the Elixir of Life, a rascally Egyptian priest stole it from me; and, alas! the recipe was too complicated for any human brain to remember.
"But, even though I cannot offer you the divine gift of immortality, I can provide a panacea for a thousand ills. I draw teeth, set sprains and apply electric fluid after the principles of Doctor Mesmer, who, as you may have heard, is now all the rage in fashionable Paris, and, 'tis said, has even treated Queen Marie Antoinette herself. I can cure boils, warts, tumours, goitre, suppurating ulcers, irritant rashes, eczema, catarrh, lumbago, anaemia, a persistent cough, acidity, headaches, sleeplessness, sore nipples, affections of the eyes, deafness, night-sweats, wind, bad breath and foot rot.
"There are too, those results of amatory imprudence which for some purpose of His own the good God has seen fit to inflict upon us poor mortals. I refer, in the first place, to those dangerous diseases which, praise be, are rarely met with in the country, and particularly in towns of such high morality as St. Romain, but can be caught by even the best-intentioned during visits of curiosity to the dubious haunts of our great cities; in the second, to that process in nature which, as the result of a few moments' indulgence, oft inflicts upon a girl or woman a burden that she is either unfitted or unwilling to bear. Finally, there are those distempers of the mind and brain which call for special treatment. Unrequited love is such a one, loss of sexual vitality and an inability to beget children are others. For all of these I have most efficacious remedies; but such are private matters, and should any of you wish to consult me on them I shall be at your service in my room here, at the inn, between eight o'clock and midnight. I make no extra charge for these confidential consultations and your secrets will be as safe with me as if made to your Cure in the confessional."
As the Doctor finished this long and grandiloquent harangue, Roger would not have been surprised if the crowd had broken into cries of anger and derision. Never had he heard so many palpable lies rolled off in so few moments, and it seemed impossible that any collection of sane men and women would believe one-tenth of them. Yet, as he looked at the dull and stupid faces of the peasant audience he realised that their ignorance must be abysmal, and that it was doubtful if they even understood half the allusions the Doctor had made to his mythical journeyings. They just stood quietly and patiently there like a herd of animals. There was hardly a movement among them and their faces remained quite expressionless.
As no one came forward the Doctor went on: "Now, good folk, have no fears, but seize upon this all-too-fleeting opportunity, for by dawn to-morrow it will be too late. The world is wide and there are many sufferers in it, so I must be on my way to give the great benefit of my experience to others. But for this evening my encyclopaedic knowledge is yours for the asking. To produce an example, and thus overcome your reluctance to voice your needs, I will give a free treatment to whoever first consults me."
This offer produced an immediate reaction. The peasants were not so deaf and dumb as they appeared, and there was a little surge forward of the crowd as several people, all speaking at once, endeavoured to push their way to the front.
"That's better," purred the Doctor, as a lean, determined-looking woman gained first place. "Well, mother! What ails thee?"
It was the woman's eyes that were troubling her. Stepping down from his stand the Doctor screwed a pocket-lens into his own eye, took a quick look at them, and gave her a bottle which Roger knew to contain plain salt dissolved in water; as he remembered the Doctor remarking when they made it up that no better eye lotion had ever been discovered, and that it was a pity they had to pander to their customer's stupid belief that no medicine was ever efficacious unless it was coloured, since the colouring matter rendered it much less soothing than would have been an unadulterated solution.
The next applicant was a man with a horrid suppurating ulcer on his forearm, for which the Doctor sold him a pot of ointment; the third a woman who complained of splitting headaches; the fourth, another carrying a child that had croup: and so it went on for an hour or more. After a brief examination of each patient the Doctor pointed out the bottle or pot that Roger was to hand them and told him how much to charge. The fee was generally three sous and rarely more than six, while for drawing a tooth or extracting the core of a malignant boil by the application of the neck of a heated bottle, the Doctor charged only half a franc, so Roger, greatly disappointed in this collection of half-pence, began to fear that they would not even make enough clear profit to pay for their night's lodging.
Yet his pile of greasy little copper coins gradually grew, and presently the young men and girls of the village began to mingle with the afflicted, having raided their savings to buy the vigour-inducing tonics and beauty preparations which the Doctor had mentioned in his opening address.
For each he had some special name and story. "Paris drops" were the very same elixir which had enabled the hero of antiquity to rape one hundred virgins in a night and yet remain with his desire unappeased next morning. "Helen's cream" was the secret of the beauty which had made the knees of old men turn to water as they watched her pass by on the battlements of Troy. "Cleopatra's ointment" was that same kohl with which the Egyptian Queen had painted her black eyebrows when she went out to meet and ensnare Caesar, and so on, ad infinitum.
As Roger handed out these nostrums, balms and potions, he was amazed that the village wenches among his customers should be so far removed from the score or so of elegant ladies he had seen shopping in the Rue Francois 1er two afternoons earlier, and even from the shop girls of Le Havre, as to appear almost of a different race. They were bedraggled, dirty and slovenly, with their hair unkempt and their ugly feet thrust naked into wooden sabots. Yet it seemed, as they carefully counted out their hoarded sous, they were as anxious to obtain some little aid to beauty as their more fortunate sisters in the city.