(a vaudeville monologue—abridged)
Character: E.Z. MARK, a victim of flivvers and doctors
No scenery required
Costume: straight or eccentric
Time: About ten minutes (unabridged)
E.Z. Mark (facing audience and looking very woebegone and downtrodden): I was standing on the corner waiting for a chance to cross the street. The traffic officer went, “Phew! Phew!” (whistle) and I ran over the crossing. A flivver went, “Honk! Honk!” and ran over me. As I was lying on my back in the middle of the street, wondering what had happened, a policeman came along and pinched me for parking more than six feet from the curb.
Then I went home and crawled into bed; but I must have caught cold, because when I woke up the next day I was a little hoarse. So I went to a horse doctor.
A horse doctor is a man who knows all about cows.
The horse doctor was sitting in his house all alone. A horse doctor never has much office practice. I lived next door to a horse doctor for seven years, and never once did I see a horse enter his office.
“What do you want?” said the doctor.
“I’m sick,” said I.
“Can you eat and sleep?” said he.
“Not at the same time,” said I.
“You have hoof and mouth disease,” said he.
“I have not,” said I. “I was run down by an automobile.”
“I can do nothing for you,” said he. “I am a horse doctor and know nothing about automobiles.”
Then I asked him if he couldn’t give me something to relieve the pain. He said that he could, went over to a shelf, and took down a large bottle of some sticky-looking stuff, which he handed to me. I took out the cork and—wow! That was the worst smelling stuff I ever came in contact with. It was awful. When I got my breath back, I gasped, “What is it, Doc?”
“It’s a lotion,” said he. “Just before you retire tonight, rub yourself from head to foot with this lotion. Use plenty of it; then get into bed. At nine o’clock tonight the pain will leave you; at twelve o’clock tonight the soreness will leave you—”
“Yes,” said I, handing back the bottle, “and at six o’clock in the morning my wife will leave me. Good-bye, Doc.”
Then I went to a general practitioner. A general practitioner is a man who is generally practicing.
When I limped into his office, he said, “Ah, you’re a little stiff. You have the rheumatism.”
I said, “You’re a big stiff, and I haven’t got the rheumatism.”
“Excuse me,” said he. “You were walking lame, and naturally I thought that it was the rheumatics. I now see that the trouble with you is that your kidneys are in your feet instead of your back.”
He then took a telephone and listened in on my chest.
“I was mistaken,” he said. “The trouble is in your appendix. You will have to cut out smoking.”
“You are wrong again,” said I. “The appendix is in the back of the book, whereas the pain I have is on the contrary.”
“You know a lot about the appendix, don’t you?” sneered the doctor.
“I know all about the appendix,” I replied. “To begin with, the appendix has two plurals—appendixes and appendicitis.”
“You will have to have an operation.”
“How much will it cost?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“Five hundred dollars! Suffering cats! They opened up the Panama Canal for less than that.”
“This is a major operation,” said the doctor.
“A major operation,” I said, “for five hundred dollars! It ought to be a major-general operation. The operation is out.”
Then I went to the family doctor.
A family doctor is a man who gets up in the middle of a cold winter’s night, climbs into a flivver, and drives seven miles through the snow and slush because you telephone him that you have a pain in your jaw. The family doctor is the first one you call for and the last one you pay.
“What’s the matter?” said Doc, when I walked into his office.
“I don’t know,” said I. “I sleep all right, and I eat all right, but I have no desire to work. I just sit around on the bed all day.”
“That’s a common complaint,” said he. “I will inoculate you with a gland.”
“A monkey gland?” said I.
“No, an elephant gland,” said he.
And he did. Now I don’t sit around on my bed anymore. I sit around on my trunk.