Page:Houdini - Miracle Mongers.djvu/99

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MIRACLE-MONGERS AND THEIR METHODS
77

beard. He found a rival in this city in the person of another French "chemist," who gave the Doctor considerable opposition and consequently much trouble.

The Doctor was famous, also, for his four-horse turnouts in Broadway, alternating, when he saw proper, to a change to the "tandem" style. He married an Irish lady whom he at first supposed to be immensely rich, but after the nuptials it was discovered that she merely had a life interest in a large estate in common with several others.

The Doctor, it appears, was formerly a soldier in the French Army, and quite recently he received from thence a medal of the order of St. Helena, an account of which appeared in the Herald. Prior to his death he was engaged in writing his biography (in French) and had it nearly ready for publication.

Here follows a supposedly humorous speech in broken English, quoted from the London Lancet, in which the Doctor is satirized. Continuing, the articles says:

"The Doctor was what was termed a