Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1896 — BREAKING UP A NUISANCE. [ARTICLE]

BREAKING UP A NUISANCE.

A Circus Manager Ends' the PlayecbOut Call for a Doctor. “Your story about vailing for a doctor in the circus,” said a retired showman, “reminds me of the way we broke up a nuisance In a good-sized Pennsylvania town. I was on the road with a farce-comedy company, and we put in two weeks at rhe town in question, there being a big military encampment there and a county fair to boot. We drew good houses all through the engagement, and were booked for an early return. I don’t think we had been there more than one night before the doctor ntiisance began. There would come a hurried messenger from the box office to the stage manager with a request that he ask if Dr. Bolus, or whatever his name happened to be, was in the house, and if he was, to send him to the office at once. Of course the stage manager couldn’t very well refuse, end general attention was directed to the medical man, much to his satisfaction. We soon found out that the doctors who were so much in demand were very small medical fry, and there wasn’t a doubt that they hail had themselves called for in order to secure the consequent notoriety. Well, we stood It for a few nights, and then an idea occurred to me. I took a walk up the mafn street until I came to a certain sign hanging over the stairway. I went up to the office Indicated and had a brief conversation with its inmate, ending it by handing him a reserved seat tickets. “That evening Immediately after ttlie first act and before any messenger from the bog office had a chance to arrive, 1 stepped out in front of the curtain and hold up my hand. Then in my gravest tones 1 asked: " ‘ls Dr. Chizzlold in the house?’' “Immediately a very tall colored man, with a bushy white head and huge silver mounted spectacles, arose in the audience and said: “ ‘Here 1 Is, sah? “The audience tittered, but I kept my gravity. “ ‘You are wanted nt the box office at once, doctor, in n case which requires your immediate professional attention.’ "As the nged medieus ducked to me and hobbled from the room, the audience broke into a wild roar. “Perhaps you will understand the cause of their merriment when I add that the old man was a corn doctor, and probably the best-known eccentric character in town. "Well, there was no more doctors called from that stage during our engagement.”—Cleveland Plain-Dealer.