Paul let drop hints on more than one occasion which showed me that Dr. Hullings saw my partial success with a malignant eye. The “Doctor” had been heard to threaten dire vengeance among his boon companions against the intrusive Englishman. He never mentioned me without a rolling accompaniment of curses, and Paul warned me that Hullings was not likely to be restrained by any scruples from ridding himself of a stumbling-block in his way.
Then, the Indian lad who carried out my physic was waylaid and roughly treated, the phials were emptied into the river, the pills and plasters flung after them, and there could be no doubt that the principal actor in this transaction was the rival surgeon. Probably Hullings wished to provoke me into challenging him, but this I would not indulge him in. Regarding, as I did and do, duelling as both wrong and foolish, I determined on no account to resort to a practice I so completely reprobated; and though I felt angry and annoyed, I resolved to continue my system of forbearance to the last moment.
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My quiet endurance only seemed to exasperate the brutal disposition of my enemy. Not content with the foul abuse with which he always mentioned my name, he now showed some method in his malignity; for he made it his business to go round Placerville, and inform all who had leisure to listen, that I was a runaway druggist’s apprentice from Britain, quite without learning, and a mere impudent quack who ought to be tarred and feathered and drummed out of the township. My answer to this was, to affix to the door of my tent a notice, setting forth that my diplomas, testimonials, and other papers, were to be seen by any one who pleased to inspect them. A few miners, teamsters, and woodcutters were pleased to inspect them, and generally held them upside down, so that the perusal could not much have edified them, but no doubt the broad seals and stamps produced a satisfactory effect.
On the third day after posting the above notice, I was sitting in my surgery, pasting dried botanical specimens into a book—for my passion was botany, and California contains some rare and singular species—when my friend Paul burst in, flushed and breathless.
“Doctor!” said he, “Ned Willis! I’ve been taking your part at the tavern yonder, till I very nigh came to blows with that blackguard fellow, Hullings, the doctor. The way he goes on abusing you and lying’s worse than a Mexicy smoothbore! And now he swears that since you won’t fight, he’ll force you to it, or make you slope out of Placerville. I left him, with a core of rowdies, just startin’ for here, and I stepped out ahead, for he vows he’ll draw the Britisher like a badger."
Here was pleasant news! My heart began to beat thick and fast, and my pulses to flutter, not exactly with fear.
“Ned Willis,” said Paul, seizing my hand, “look here. I know you’re a peaceful individual,