The Message to Buckshot John
()
About this ebook
Read more from Charles E. Van Loan
50 Essential Classic Adventure Short Stories You Have To Read Before You Die, Vol.1: Jack London, Robert Ervin Howard, E.Nesbit, Max Brand... (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFore! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOld Man Curry: Race Track Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Message to Buckshot John
Related ebooks
The Message to Buckshot John Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Substitute Millionaire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bradmoor Murder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack O' Judgment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Undefeated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath Points a Finger Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Jason Cosmo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brains for Sale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGravemould and Ectoplasm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crypt-City of the Deathless One Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Red Window Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sentence of the Court: "The more money he made the more hopeless grew his position" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDownland Echoes: ''Rolls of crumpled notes produced'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaughter of the Sun: A Tale of Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDownland Echoes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Lost Himself Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDarkness and Fog Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Adventures of Jimmie Dale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenegade 5: Macumba Killer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPeople of Position Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThey See in Darkness Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Green Gene: A Crime Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack O’Judgment Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTristram of Blent: An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFellowship of the Frog Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Indian Territory 1: Oklahoma Showdown Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCanto for a Gypsy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mysteries and Adventures Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Honorable Cody Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Art For You
The Shape of Ideas: An Illustrated Exploration of Creativity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Find Your Artistic Voice: The Essential Guide to Working Your Creative Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Creative, Inc.: The Ultimate Guide to Running a Successful Freelance Business Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And The Mountains Echoed Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art 101: From Vincent van Gogh to Andy Warhol, Key People, Ideas, and Moments in the History of Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Draw Like an Artist: 100 Flowers and Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Botanical Drawing: A Step-By-Step Guide to Drawing Flowers, Vegetables, Fruit and Other Plant Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Morpho: Anatomy for Artists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Draw and Paint Anatomy, All New 2nd Edition: Creating Lifelike Humans and Realistic Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art Models 10: Photos for Figure Drawing, Painting, and Sculpting Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Super Graphic: A Visual Guide to the Comic Book Universe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Designer's Dictionary of Color Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Electric State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World Needs Your Art: Casual Magic to Unlock Your Creativity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnatomy for Fantasy Artists: An Essential Guide to Creating Action Figures & Fantastical Forms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Message to Buckshot John
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Message to Buckshot John - Charles E. Van Loan
Charles E. Van Loan
The Message to Buckshot John
EAN 8596547055112
DigiCat, 2022
Contact: DigiCat@okpublishing.info
Table of Contents
I
II
III
IV.
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
I
Table of Contents
THE GREAT GILMORE, founder of the fashionable cult of Purified Thought, known outside the advertising columns as Dr. Buchanan Gilmore, and to a select few as doc,
disposed his white-flanneled legs under an immense mahogany table, armed himself with a jade-handled paper-cutter, and attacked his morning's mail.
The rich, heavy furniture, the tapestries, the thick Persian rugs, the graceful but inconspicuous bronzes, and the gorgeously clad Oriental attendant spoke eloquently of prosperity. The Great Gilmore himself, arrayed from head to foot in spotless white, a single rare jewel winking from his cravat, struck a high, clear note in the midst of this effective stage setting.
It was characteristic of the man that, whatever his surroundings, he managed to be the most conspicuous thing in sight. When he had a chance to set the scenes himself, the effect was irresistible and compelling. A marvelous stage-director was lost in the Great Gilmore, and the shrine of Purified Thought was all that limited money and unlimited taste could make it.
Really, my dear,
said one Denver lady, while breathlessly describing her visit to the eminent savant, "his consultation-room is wonderful! So well is it arranged that one carries away nothing but the sense of simple elegance. Positively, my dear, the man's taste is marvelous! And such a personality! Such an expression of power in his eyes! No, brown, my dear! I remember most distinctly!"
The Great Gilmore, having set his trap for money, used money as a lure. Everything in his office was genuine—that is to say, everything but the man himself. Even the velvet-eyed, catlike servant was a genuine Hindu from over the seas, vainly endeavoring to forget that he had ever been a snake-charmer with a medicine show. Dr. Buchanan Gilmore—doubters might see his diploma displayed in the waiting-room—believed in a good front
as firmly as he believed in the great truth that for every fleecy lamb born into this world the shears are appointed and the time set.
Gone were the hard days when the doc
strained his musical voice in order to persuade the proletariat of the kerosene belt to part with twenty-five cents for a bottle of his justly celebrated Snake Oil, a solid gold friendship ring and a silk handkerchief being thrown in with each and every purchase. As Questo the Hypnotist, the vaudevilles knew him no more. Legerdemain, palm-reading, ventriloquism, astrology, and materializing séances he had put sternly, behind him, along with several temporarily assumed names for which he now had no further use.
This grub had become a butterfly, disdaining all but hothouse blossoms. As the expounder of Purified Thought, Dr. Buchanan Gilmore never gave sittings.
He made appointments.
The difference showed plainly in the figures upon the weekly bill, rendered to his clients upon neatly engraved linen bond.
Purified Thought appealed to a rich clientèle. There was in the very name a subtle magic which attracted those whom the doctor was pleased to describe as the better classes.
If he had learned nothing else from his lean and hungry years—his petty-larceny period, he called it—the Great Gilmore had made certain of the fact that the possession of much money does not change human nature. A rich woman, seeking advice in matters of the heart, would accept precisely the same counsel as her sister behind the notion-counter, who spares fifty cents in exchange for an interpretation of the lines in her palm. And the more the rich woman paid for her advice, the more valuable it would seem to be.
Purified Thought was the same old goods. The difference was in the package, and the market was hungry.
The Great Gilmore's mail was a heavy one, for he knew something about newspaper advertising. Some newspaper advertising is for sale, and some is not; and the latter is by far the more desirable. The doctor bought just enough of the first to be sure of the second, and in the news columns he frequently jostled the youngest society bud or the oldest political rascal for prominence. It was an excellent way of getting business, for people are more or less prone to believe that the man who is often in the public prints must amount to something.
The doctor's long, nimble fingers flew as they sorted out the mail, but there was one letter which held him for a second reading. It was written in pencil upon two sheets of dirty, yellow