His victim watched, anxiously waiting, with his two hands on the head of his cane. The gloom appeared to affect his spirits; he seemed ready to expect the worst.
Doctor Masterson took off his spectacles and wiped them on a yellow silk handkerchief. "It looks pretty serious to me," he said, "but I calculate I can fix you up. It'll cost some money, though. Ye see, it's this way: I'm controlled by an Indian medicine-man named Hasandoka and his band o' sperits. Now, in order to bring this here psychic force to bear on your case, it's bound to take considerable o' my time and their time, and I'll have to go to work and neglect my reg'lar patients. It takes it out o' me, and I can't do but just so much or I peter out. I'll go into a trance and see what Hasandoka has to say, and then you'll be in a condition to know what to decide. O' course, you understand, I ain't no doctor and don't claim to be, but I got control of a powerful psychic force that guides me in my treatment, and I never knew it to fail yet. If my band o' sperits can't help you, nobody can, and you better go to work and make your will right away. See?"
Mr. Payson saw the argument and manifested a desire to proceed with the investigation.
The doctor loosened his celluloid collar and closed his eyes. In a minute or two he appeared to fall asleep, breathing heavily.
Then, through him, the great Hasandoka spoke, in the guttural dialect such as is supposed to be affected by the American Indian, using flowery metaphors punctuated by grunts.
The tenor of his communication was that Mr. Payson was undoubtedly afflicted with something which was termed a "complication." He went into fearsome prophecies as to its probable progress downward to the feet, upward to the brain and forward to the kidney, with minor excursions to the liver and lights. The patient's spine was preparing itself for paralysis; it seemed that death was imminent at any moment. Hasandoka expressed his willingness to accept the case, however, and promised to effect a radical cure in a month at most, if treatment were begun immediately, before it was too late. The cure would be accomplished by massage, used in connection with a potent herb, known only to the primitive Indian tribes. After this message Hasandoka squirmed out of the medium's body and the soul of Doctor Masterson squirmed in again. There were the customary spasmodic gestures of awakening before he opened his eyes.