So when I found where the shoe pinched I got me a half-wineglass full of strong Strasbourg Branntwein, and caught a kind of toad called Reling or Möhmlein, that in spring and summer sits in dirty pools and croaks, gold colour or nearly salmon colour with black spots on its belly, most hateful to see. Such an one I put in a wineglass with water and set it by my wares on a table under the lime-tree. And when the people began to gather together and stood round me, some thought I would, with the tongs that I had borrowed from the hostess, pull out teeth. But I began thus: “My masters and goot frients (for I could still speak but little French), I be no tooths-cracker, only I haf goot watter for ze eye, zat make all ze running go way from ze red eye.” “Yea,” says one, “that can one see by thine own eyes, that be like to two will-o’-the-wisps.” “And zat is true,” says I, “but if I had not ze watter sure I were quite blint: besides, I sell not ze watter. Ze elegtuary and ze powder for ze white tooths and ze wound-salve, zese will I sell, but ze watter I gif avay mit dem! For I be no quack nor no cheater: I do sell mine elegtuary: and when I haf tried it, if it blease you not you needs not to puy it.”
So I bade one of them that stood by to choose any one of my boxes of electuary, out of which I made a pill as large as a pea, and put it into my Branntwein, which the people took for water, and there pounded it up and then picked up the toad with the tongs out of the water-glass and said, “See, my goot frients, if this fenomous worm do drink mine elegtuary wizout dying, so is ze ting no goot, and zenn puy it not.” With that I put the poor toad, that had been born in water and could bear no other element or liquor, into the Branntwein, and held it covered in with a paper so that he could not leap out: which began to struggle and to wriggle, yea, to do worse than if I had thrown him upon red-hot coals, for the Branntwein was much too strong for him: and after a short time he died and stretched out his four legs. At that the peasants opened their mouths and their purses too when they saw so plain a proof with their own eyes: for now they believed there could be no better electuary on earth than mine, and I had enough to do to wrap up the stuff in the printed papers and take money for it.
For some of them did buy three, four, five, six times so much, that they might at need be provided with so sure an antidote against poison: yea, they bought also for their friends and kinsfolk that dwelt in other places, so that from this foolery (though ’twas no market-day) I gained by the evening ten crowns, and still kept more than the half of my wares. The same night I betook myself to another village, as fearing lest some peasant should be so curious as to put a toad in water to try the virtue of my electuary, and if it should fail my back should suffer for it.
But to show the excellence of my antidote in another way, I made me, of meal, saffron, and galls, a yellow arsenic, and of meal and vitriol a sublimate of mercury; and when I would show the effect of it I had ready two like glasses of fresh water on the table, whereof one was pretty strongly mixed with aqua fortis: into this I stirred a little of my electuary and dropped in as much of my two poisons as was needed: then was one water, that had no electuary (but also no aqua fortis) in it, as black as ink, while the other, by reason of the aqua fortis, remained as it was. “Aha,” said they all, “see, that is truly a marvellous electuary for so little money!” And then when I poured both together again the whole was clear once more: at that the good peasants dragged out their purses and bought of me: which not only helped my hungry belly, but also I could take horse again, earned much money on the way, and so came safely to the German border.
And so, my dear country-folks, put not your faith in quacks: or ye will be deceived by them, since they seek not your health but your wealth.
VII
How the Doctor Was Fitted with a Musket Under Captain Curmudgeon
Now as I passed through Lorraine, my wares gave out, and because I must avoid garrison-towns I had no chance to get more: so must I devise another plan till I could make electuary again. So I bought me two measures of Branntwein and coloured it with saffron, and sold it in half-ounce glasses to the people as a gold water of great price, good against fever, and so my two measures brought me in thirty gulden. But my little glasses running short, and I hearing of a glass-maker that dwelt in the county of Fleckenstein, I betook myself thither to equip myself afresh, but seeking for bypaths was by chance caught by a picket from Philippsburg that was quartered in the castle of Wagelnburg, and so lost all that I had wrung out of the people by my cheats on the journey; and because the peasant that went with me to show the way told the fellows I was a doctor, as a doctor I must willy-nilly be taken to Philippsburg. There was I examined and spared not to
