A Strange Discovery by Charles Romyn Dake

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A Strange DISCOVERY

By

Charles Romyn Dake

(1889)

HOW WE FOUND DIRK PETERS

The FIRST Chapter

It was once my good fortune to assist in a discovery of some importance
to lovers of literature, and to searchers after the new and wonderful.
As nearly a quarter of a century has since elapsed, and as two others
shared in the discovery, it may seem to the reader strange that the
general public has been kept in ignorance of an event apparently so full
of interest. Yet this silence is quite explicable; for of the three
participants none has heretofore written for publication; and of my two
associates, one is a quiet, retiring man, the other is erratic and
forgetful.

It is also possible that the discovery did not at the time impress
either my companions or myself as having that importance and widespread
interest which I have at last come to believe it really possesses. In
any view of the case, there are reasons, personal to myself, why it was
less my duty than that of either of the others to place on record the
facts of the discovery. Had either of them, in all these years, in ever
so brief a manner, done so, I should have remained forever silent.

The narrative which it is my purpose now to put in written form, I have
at various times briefly or in part related to one and another of my
intimate friends; but they all mistook my facts for fancies, and
good-naturedly complimented me on my story-telling powers--which was
certainty not flattering to my qualifications as an historian.

With this explanation, and this extenuation of what some persons may
think an inexcusable and almost criminal delay, I shall proceed.

In the year 1877 I was compelled by circumstances to visit the States.
At that time, as at the present, my home was near Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
My father, then recently deceased, had left, in course of settlement in
America, business interests involving a considerable pecuniary
investment, of which I hoped a large part might be recovered. My lawyer,
for reasons which seemed to me sufficient, advised that the act of
settlement should not be delegated; and I decided to leave at once for
the United States. Ten days later I reached New York, where I remained
for a day or two and then proceeded westward. In St. Louis I met some of
the persons interested in my business. There the whole transaction took
such form that a final settlement depended wholly upon the agreement
between a certain man and myself; but, fortunately for the fate of this
narrative, the man was not in St. Louis. He was one of those wealthy
so-called "kings" which abound in America--in this case a "coal king." I
was told that he possessed a really palatial residence in St.
Louis--where he _did not_ dwell; and a less pretentious dwelling
directly in the coal-fields, where, for the most of his time, he _did_
reside. I crossed the Mississippi River into Southern Illinois, and very
soon found him. He was a plain, honest business man; we did not split
hairs, and within a week I had in my pocket London exchange for
something like L20,000, he had in his pocket a transfer of my interest
in certain coal-fields and a certain railroad, and we were both
satisfied.

And now, having explained how I came to be in surroundings to me so
strange, any further mention of business, or of money interests, shall
not, in the course of this narrative, again appear.

I had arrived at the town of Bellevue, in Southern Illinois, on a bright
June morning, and housed myself in an old-fashioned, four-story brick
hotel, the Loomis House, in which the proprietor, a portly, ruddy-faced,
trumpet-voiced man, assigned to me an apartment--a spacious corner
room, with three windows looking upon the main thoroughfare and two upon
a side street, and a smaller room adjoining.

[Illustration: _The_ LOOMIS HOUSE.]

Here, even before the time came when I might have returned to England
had I so desired, I acquired quite a home-like feeling. The first two
days of my stay, as I had travelled rapidly and was somewhat wearied, I
allotted to rest, and left my room for little else than the customary
tri-daily visits to the _table d'hote_.

During these first two days I made many observations from my windows,
and asked numberless questions of the bell-boy. I learned that a certain
old, rambling, two-story building directly across the side street was
the hotel mentioned by Dickens in his "American Notes," and in the lower
passage-way of which he met the Scotch phrenologist, "Doctor Crocus."
The bell-boy whom I have mentioned was the factotum of the Loomis House,
being, in an emergency, hack-driver, porter, runner--all by turns, and
nothing long at a time. He was a quaint genius, named Arthur; and his
position, on the whole, was somewhat more elevated than that of our
English "Boots." During these two days I became quite an expert in the
invention of immediate personal wants; for, as I continued my studies of
local life from the windows of my apartment, I frequently desired
information, and would then ring my bell, hoping that Arthur would be
the person to respond, as he usually was. He was an extremely profane
youth, but profane in a quiet, drawling, matter-of-fact manner. He was
frequently semi-intoxicated by noon, and sometimes quite inarticulate by
9 P.M.; but I never saw him with his bodily equilibrium seriously
impaired--in plainer words, I never saw him stagger. He openly confessed
to a weakness for an occasional glass, but would have repelled with
scorn, perhaps with blows, an insinuation attributing to him excess in
that direction. True, he referred to times in his life when he had been
"caught"--meaning that the circumstances were on those occasions such as
to preclude any successful denial of intoxication; but these occasions,
it was implied, dated back to the period of his giddy youth.

With little to occupy my mind (I had the St. Louis dailies, one of which
was the best newspaper--excepting, of course, our _Times_--that I have
ever read; but my trunks did not arrive until a day or two later, and I
was without my favorite books), I became really interested in studying
the persons whom I saw passing and repassing the hotel, or stopping to
converse on the opposite street-corners; and after forming surmises
concerning those of them who most interested me, I would ask Arthur who
they were, and then compare with my own opinions the truth as furnished
by him.

There was a quiet, well-dressed young man, who three or four times each
day passed along the side street. Regarding him, I had formed and
altered my opinion several times; but I finally determined that he was a
clergyman in recent orders and just come to town. When I asked Arthur
whether I was correct in my surmise, he answered:

"Wrong again--that is, on the fellow's business"--I had not before made
an erroneous surmise; but on the contrary, had shown great penetration
in determining, at a single glance for each of them, two lawyers and a
banker--"Yes, sir, wrong again; and right again, too. His name's Doctor
Bainbridge, and he's fool enough to come here with the town just alive
with other sawbones. He's some kind of a 'pathy doctor, come here to
learn us how to get well on sugar and wind--or pretty near that bad. He
don't give no medicine worth mentionin', he keeps his hoss so fat he
can't trot, and he ain't got no wife to mend his clothes. They say he's
gettin' along, though; and old farmer Vagary's boy that had 'em, told me
he was good on fits--but I don't believe _that_, for the boy had the
worst fit in his life after he told me. The doctor said--so they
tell--as that was jest what he expected, and that he was glad the fit
came so hard, for it show'd the medicine was workin'."

My attention was particularly attracted to a man who daily, in fact
almost hourly, stood at an opposite corner, and who frequently arrived,
or drove away, in a buggy drawn by two rather small, black, spirited
horses. He was a tall, lithe, dark-complexioned man, with black eyes,
rather long black hair, and a full beard; extremely restless, and
constantly moving back and forth. He addressed many passers-by, a fair
proportion of whom stopped to exchange a word with him. In the latter
instance, however, the exchange was scarcely equitable, as he did the
talking, and his remarks, judging by his gestures of head and hand, were
generally emphatic.

One of the apparently favorite positions which he assumed was to throw
an arm around the corner gas-post, and swing his body back and forth,
occasionally, when alone, taking a swing entirely around the post.
Another favorite position was to stand with his fists each boring into
the hollow of his back over the corresponding hip, with his chest and
shoulders thrown well back, and his head erect, looking steadily off
into the distance. With regard to this man's station in life, I took
little credit to myself for a correct guess; for, in addition to other
aids to correct guessing, the store-room on that corner was occupied by
an apothecary. When I asked Arthur whether the man was not a physician,
"Yes, sir," he replied; "physician, surgeon, and obstetrician; George F.
Castleton, A.M., M.D. _He_ ought to get a dry-goods box and a
torch-light, and sell 'Hindoo Bitters' in the Public-square. If you
jest want to die quick, you know where to go to get it. That fellow
salivated me till my teeth can't keep quiet. Oh, he knows it all!
Medicine ain't enough to fill his intellecty. _He_ runs the Government
and declares war to suit himself. 'Moves around a great deal,' you say?
Well, I believe you; but when you see his idees move around you'll quit
sighing about his body. Why, sir, that man in a campaign changes his
politics every day; nobody ever yet caught up with his religion; and
besides, he's a prophet. You jest get back home without touchin' _him_,
if you love me, now, please do."

All of this was said in a quiet, instructive tone, without much show of
feeling even when the teeth were mentioned, and only such emphasis as
has been indicated by my italics. Arthur's advice for me to get home
without "touching" the doctor, I had no intention of following. My
curiosity regarding the man was aroused, and I had determined, if
possible, to know him. So far as one could be influenced from a
third-story window, I was favorably impressed with him. I judged him to
be superlatively erratic, but without an atom of real evil in his being.
I had observed from my window an incident that gave me a glance into the
man's heart. A poor, dilapidated, distressed negro, evidently seeking
help, had come running up to him as he stood near his buggy, at the
corner; and the manner in which he pushed the negro into the buggy,
himself followed, and then started off at a break-neck speed, left no
doubt in my mind that the doctor had a heart as large as the whole
world. Once or twice during the long, warm afternoons, his words came to
me through the open windows. I was aware that his almost preternaturally
bright, quick eyes flashed a glance or two at me as I once or twice
stepped rather close to an open window looking out over the lower
roof-tops beyond; and I felt that he had given me a niche in his mind,
as I had him in mine. I wondered if he had formed mental estimates of my
status, and if so whether he had attempted to corroborate them as did I
mine, through Arthur. Once I heard him say to a small, craven-looking
man, apparently feeble in mind and in body, with red, contracted,
watering eyes, "Yes, sir, if I had been Sam Tilden, the blood in these
streets would have touched your stirrups"--the little man had no
stirrups--"This country is trembling over an abyss deeper'n the infernal
regions. Ha, ha! What a ghastly burlesque on human freedom! Now, hark
you, Pickles"--the small man was not only listening, but, I could
imagine, trembling. He would now and then look furtively around, as if
fearing that somebody else might hear the doctor, and that war would
begin--"listen to me: 'Hell has no fury like a nation scorned.'" Here
Doctor Castleton shot a glance at the little man, to see whether or not
so fine a stroke was appreciated, and whether his quotation was or was
not passing as original. "I repeat, 'Hell has no fury like a nation
scorned'--_Nation_, you hear, Pickles--_nation_, not woman. There is
just one thing to save this crumbling Republic; give us more paper
money--greenbacks on greenbacks, mountain high. Let the Government rent
by the month or lease by the year every printing-press in the
country--let the machinery sweetly hum as the sheets of treasury-notes
fall in cascades to the floor, to be cut apart, packed in bundles, and
sent to any citizen who wants them on his own unendorsed
note--_un_endorsed, Pickles, and at two per cent.! Ever study logic,
Pickles? No! Well, no matter; my brain's full enough of the stuff for
both of us. If the American citizen is honest--which I opine that he
is--the scheme will work like a charm; if he is _dis_honest--which God
forbid, and let no man assert--then let the country sink--and the sooner
the better. I pity the imbecile that can't see this point. The
people--and _is_ this country for the _people_, or is it not?--follow
me, Pickles: the people obtain plenty of money, the stores get it, the
factories and importers get it, and commerce hums." Here the doctor was
for a moment diverted by some objective impression; and without a word
of excuse to the little man, he swung himself into his buggy, which
stood waiting, and drove rapidly away; whilst the diminutive man, after
a moment of weak indecision, shuffled off down the street. I later
learned that these talks of Doctor Castleton's were, as regards the
element of verity, thrown off as writers of fiction throw off fancies.
Sometimes he defended opinions that were in fierce conflict with the
ideas of his auditors; but he generally talked to please them,
frequently assuming as his own, and in exaggerated form, the hobbies,
notions, or desires of his auditors. In the incident just recorded, the
doctor probably had not, as a matter of fact, been stating his real
opinions, though for the moment he may have imagined that he was an
uncompromising "Paper-money man" or "Greenbacker," as a member of one of
the minor political parties of the day was termed: the little man was
poor, and Doctor Castleton had simply been drawing for him a picture of
delights--at least, so I conjectured. This propensity of the doctor
sometimes led to startling surprises and results, and, once at least, to
a discovery of weighty consequence--as we shall soon perceive.

It was novelty for me, and under the circumstances often quite
refreshing, to witness the manner in which Americans treated the mighty
subjects of life, and spoke of the great and powerful persons of the
earth. It was an abundant source of entertainment for me to ask almost
anybody with whom I happened to be conversing, for his opinion on some
great subject or of some noted personage; for the reply was always to me
unique, sometimes very amusing, and not infrequently instructive. On the
way for the second time from our evening meal to my room, I stopped for
a moment in the "Gentlemen's sitting-room," where I in part overheard a
conversation between an elderly and a middle-aged man. I afterward
learned that the younger man was a lawyer, by name Lill; that he was
well known throughout the State, a man of cultivation, very conventional
in his private life, but an unequivocal dissenter on almost every great
social question; a man of high honor, and unquestionable personal
habits, for whom exalted public office had often waited if only he could
have modified his expressed opinions to less inharmony with those of men
who held the reins of power. It seemed that these two men had not met
for a year or more; and as I entered the room they were comparing
experiences, in a leisurely, confidential, sympathetic way. As I came
within hearing, the lawyer had just started in afresh, after a laugh and
a pause. Settling-down his features, and assuming a more-news-to-
be-told manner, with a pinch of fine-cut tobacco between finger and
thumb ready to go into his mouth, and leaning slightly forward to keep
the tobacco-dust from his shirt-front, he said, "Well, David, I read the
Bible through again last winter, and I must continue to think it a very
immoral book. Its teaching is really bad. Why, sir, what would you think
of such d---d outrageous teaching if anybody were at this time to
promulgate it with an implication of any practical relation to present
events?" And so he continued, somewhat, though not greatly, to the
horror of his companion, who seemed to be a Christian--at least by
descent. On another day, after the mid-day meal, as I again entered this
room, I observed a new-comer in conversation with what I took to be a
small delegation of Bellevue business men. I was afterward presented to
this new arrival, when I learned that his name was Rowell--General
Rowell; a name which I thought I had seen in the newspapers at home. He
was a large man of prepossessing appearance, and gave me the impression
of considerable mental force and activity. I heard him say to his
visitors--the words apparently closing a conference: "Yes, gentlemen, if
I come to Bellevue, and we build a nail mill in your city, I ask only
five years time in which to make our mill the largest nail-works in the
world." For a moment, as I heard this remark, it passed through my mind
that I was in the presence of an excellent example of an amusing type of
American life; but the momentary thought was erroneous. This man was one
of a type of American--well, of American promoters, I will say--the
business plans of whom, though mammoth and audacious, rarely fail--the
genuine article of which the Colonel Sellerses are but pitiful
imitators. In this instance, the promise was fulfilled, with a year or
two to spare. The right to express personal opinion was looked upon as
one of the fruits of '76, and the value of such opinion seemed to be
measured almost wholly on its merits--even to a laughable extent. For
instance, this lawyer, or Doctor Castleton, or any other American whom I
met, whatever he might privately have thought on the subject, would not
for a moment have claimed that his opinion was innately superior to that
of, for instance, the factotum, Arthur. A man seemed to have, also, an
inalienable right to be a snob; but I saw in America only one man who
utilized that privilege. I heard an Ex-Governor of the State express
himself on this subject by the concise remark, "We have no law _here_
against a man making a d----d fool of himself." It's "Abe" for the
President of the Republic, "Dick" for the Governor of the State, and so
on, all the way through. But no one should imagine that admiration as
well as respect for the truly great of the land is less than it is where
a man with four names and two inherited titles receives greater homage
than does one with only three names and one title. Customs differ in
different lands--a trite remark; but it is about all that can be said on
the subject: after all, human feeling is not extremely different in
different lands, when we once get back of mere form.

I might illustrate a part of my statement by relating an incident which
occurred on my third day in the hotel, and just prior to my emergence
from seclusion into the midst of the busy little city. I was in my
sitting-room, and Arthur had brought in a pitcher of ice-water, placing
it on a table. Then he paused and looked toward me, as if expecting the
usual question on some subject connected with my surroundings. But at
the time I had nothing to ask. After a moment of quiet, Arthur spoke:

"Did you see the Prince lately?" he inquired. I had by this time grown
so accustomed to Arthur's mode of thought and lingual expression, that
even this question did not greatly surprise me. I supposed that the
query was made on the first suggestion of an alert mind desirous of
starting a little agreeable conversation, and wishing to be sociable
with a "two-room" guest. He immediately continued:

"I hope he's well. I met him, you know, when he was over here, sev'ral
years ago, gettin' idees for his kingdom."

I began to feel amused. Arthur was not a liar, and anything but a bore:
he struck me as being truthful on all subjects except that of his
bibulous weakness--a subject on which he was, perhaps naturally, not
able to form accurate notions.

"Where did you meet His Highness, Arthur?" I asked.

"Oh, in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. I was only eight then. They wouldn't
let boys in the hotel to see him, and there was so many big-wigs around
the young man, I couldn't get to see him at first. But after a while
they all got out in front of the hotel, to get into their carriages.
They had to wait a few minutes, but I couldn't get in front to see him.
The hotel hall was empty by that time, and everybody was looking at the
Prince; so I hurried through the barber-shop into the side hall; slipped
along into the main hall, to the main entrance. I was not more than ten
or twelve feet from the Prince, but I was at the back of the crowd; so I
jest got down on all-fours, and crawled in between their legs. I got
clear up to the Prince, but a big man stood on each side of him, right
close up. For a minute I thought I was worse off than ever. Then I
noticed that the Prince had his legs a little separate--his knees were
maybe six inches apart, with one leg standin' ahead of the other. I was
a little fellow, even for eight; and I saw my chance. I ran my head in
between his knees and twisted my body and neck so as to look right up
into his face, as he looked down to see what rubbed against him. He
looked kind of funny when he saw my face down there, but not a bit mad;
and he could easy have hurt me, but he didn't. I drew back my head so
quick that nobody else saw me. I often wonder if the Prince remembers
me; and I wish you'd ask him when you go home. Since I grew up, I've
often felt ashamed to think I did it. If you think of it, and it ain't
too much trouble, please tell him that we know better in the United
States than to do such things, but that I was little then, and I must
have been ignorant of ettiket, my father bein' dead, and I havin' to
stay out of school to help make money. If you will, say I hope there's
no feelin'; and when you think of it, drop me a line, please."

The SECOND Chapter

A week had elapsed since my arrival in Bellevue. I had been introduced
to Doctor Castleton, and had exchanged a few words with him. I had also
listened to several of his street-corner talks, and my interest in him
from day to day had increased. This interest must have been reciprocal,
for he seemed to look for my coming; but then, in whom was he not
interested? I liked him for his real goodness, was entertained by his
erratic ways, and admired his intellectual brightness. Never before had
I come in contact with a mind at once so spontaneous and so versatile.
It was perhaps his most striking peculiarity, that he seemed always to
be looking for something startling to occur; and in a dearth of the new
and sensational from without, he produced excitement for the community
from within. The weather, for instance, was growing warmer, and the
summer was apparently to be a sultry one: hence, before the season was
ended we were to look for the most sweeping epidemics of disease; a
comet had been sighted by one of our comet-hunters, and we were all to
say later whether or not it would have been better if we'd never been
born, and so on, and so on. His mind teemed with a prescience of the
plans and plots of statesmen, of bureaucrats, and of "plutocrats":
Germany was going to overshadow Europe, and "grind all beneath it like a
glacier"; "France was about to strike back at Prussia, and the blow
would be felt in the trembling of the earth from Pole to Pole." Yet
this, I thought, was to the man himself all fiction--the froth on the
limpid and sparkling depths beneath--the overflow of a bright,
undisciplined mind amid the stagnation of a country town. This strange
man would not intentionally have brought actual injury upon even an
enemy--if he ever had a real enemy; he was at heart, and generally in
practice, as kind as a gentle woman. But he seemed unable to exist
without mental super-activity; and the sympathy of his fellows in his
mental gyrations was to him a constant necessity. Few of the persons
whom he habitually met and who had leisure were able to discuss with him
the books he read, and not many of them cared even to hear him talk of
his fresh literary accessions. He had, long ago, and many times,
described for the benefit of the habitues of the corners, the career of
Alexander and of Napoleon, explaining what they had done, and how they
had done it, and _why_; with instances in which the execution of their
plans had met with failure, the reasons for that failure, and the
methods by which, if _he_ had been them, success might easily have been
attained. An ancient-looking apothecary, with an old "Rebel bushwhacker"
and a painter out of work who "loafed" of evenings in, or in front of,
the corner apothecary shop, had stood gap-mouthed at these recitations
until the mine of wonders had been to the last grain exhausted. Still,
excitement must be procured for them. The doctor could better have
dispensed for a day with food for the body, than to have foregone
excitement for the mind; and if a majority of his auditors were also to
be gratified, the subject-matter must be strong and novel, must be
boldly produced, and, by preference, should be of local interest. As the
doctor himself delighted in surprises of a terrifying or horrifying
nature, it was unlikely that his inventions in that direction would be
characterized by tameness. He would not, when hard pressed on a dull
day, allow a fastidious care of even his own reputation to impede the
development of one of his surprises. If the town of Bellevue was to
stagnate mentally, it would not be the fault of George F. Castleton,
A.M., M.D.

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