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This was, that, when the time came for the doctor to depart, he should be left entirely whole and unharmed, in mind, body, and estate, provided he could put to the Devil three consecutive questions, of which either one should be such that that cunning spirit could not solve it on the spot. So for twenty years Dr. Hicok lived and prospered, and waxed very great.
Hicok as if the beating of his heart must fill the room, it struck so heavily, and the blood seemed to surge with so loud a rush through the carotids up past his ears. “Shall I be found to have gone off with a rush of blood to the head?” he thought to himself.
Hicok should succeed in whatever he undertook during twenty years, and by the party of the second part, that at the end of that time the D should fetch him in manner and form as is ordinarily provided, yet there was added a peculiar clause.
It don’t make any difference, I know; but it seems to me as if I should put you more fully in possession of my meaning, if I should just say a word or two, about the reasons for my selection.” The visitor bowed with his usual air of pleasant acquiescence. “I am aware,” said Dr. Hicok, “that my selection would seem thoroughly commonplace to most people.
Hicok would say to himself, “I know I’ve got him!” And then his heart would seem to fall out of him, it sank so suddenly, and with so deadly a faintness, as the other side of his awful case loomed before him, and he thought, “But if ?” He would not finish that question; he could not.
He, poor man, if possible yet more frightened, exhausted as he was by what he had been enduring, fainted dead away. Don’t blame him: a cast-iron bull-dog might have fainted. Mrs. Hicok, thinking that her husband was struck dead by the lightning, screamed terribly. Then she touched him; and, seeing what was really the matter, administered cold water from the pitcher on the table.
Lunatics have the most awfully tricky ways of dodging out of pinches in reasoning; but Hicok knew too much to know that; and so he acquired his fine title to teach him one thing more. Trebly liable, we said. The three reasons are, He was foreign-born. 2. He was a Scotchman. 3. He was a physician and surgeon. Being foreign-born, Dr.
But didn’t it strike the house? What a queer smell. Ozone: isn’t that what you were telling me about? How funny, that lightning should have a smell!” “I believe there’s no doubt of it,” observed Dr. Hicok. Mr. Apollo Lyon had really gone, though just how or when, nobody could say. “My dear,” said Dr. Hicok, “I do so like that bonnet of yours! I don’t wonder it puzzled him.
Ask him buz, buzz, buzz.” The doctor nodded. Mrs. Hicok stood by him and smiled, still holding in her pretty pink fore-finger the frail shimmering thing just mentioned; and she gave it a twirl, so that it swung quite round. “Isn’t it a love of a bonnet?” she said. “Yes,” the doctor said aloud. “I adopt the question.” “Third Question. Which is the front side of this?” And he pointed to the bonnet.
Hicok had got the idea, that, from the spontaneous activity of so many free young geniuses, many wondrous and suggestive thoughts would be born. Having, however, tabulated his collection, he found, that, among all these innumerable gymnasia of intellect, there were only seventeen questions debated!
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