{"id":"01KG8AK9ZHSJQR765FVH1N3JVC","cid":"bafkreifyax6nx3hqgnkxrh3ulpgipdvqeag6ikaikfzml5h5wiy5tqyd4e","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":8616,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.725Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 6","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":8548,"text":"from me.\" The repulsed petitioner threw a look full of resentful pride\r\nand cracked disdain upon him, and went his way.\r\n\r\n\"Come, now,\" said the cosmopolitan, a little reproachfully, \"you ought\r\nto have sympathized with that man; tell me, did you feel no\r\nfellow-feeling? Look at his tract here, quite in the transcendental\r\nvein.\"\r\n\r\n\"Excuse me,\" said the stranger, declining the tract, \"I never patronize\r\nscoundrels.\"\r\n\r\n\"Scoundrels?\"\r\n\r\n\"I detected in him, sir, a damning peep of sense--damning, I say; for\r\nsense in a seeming madman is scoundrelism. I take him for a cunning\r\nvagabond, who picks up a vagabond living by adroitly playing the madman.\r\nDid you not remark how he flinched under my eye?'\r\n\r\n\"Really?\" drawing a long, astonished breath, \"I could hardly have\r\ndivined in you a temper so subtlely distrustful. Flinched? to be sure he\r\ndid, poor fellow; you received him with so lame a welcome. As for his\r\nadroitly playing the madman, invidious critics might object the same to\r\nsome one or two strolling magi of these days. But that is a matter I\r\nknow nothing about. But, once more, and for the last time, to return to\r\nthe point: why sir, did you warn me against my friend? I shall rejoice,\r\nif, as I think it will prove, your want of confidence in my friend rests\r\nupon a basis equally slender with your distrust of the lunatic. Come,\r\nwhy did you warn me? Put it, I beseech, in few words, and those\r\nEnglish.\"\r\n\r\n\"I warned you against him because he is suspected for what on these\r\nboats is known--so they tell me--as a Mississippi operator.\"\r\n\r\n\"An operator, ah? he operates, does he? My friend, then, is something\r\nlike what the Indians call a Great Medicine, is he? He operates, he\r\npurges, he drains off the repletions.\"\r\n\r\n\"I perceive, sir,\" said the stranger, constitutionally obtuse to the\r\npleasant drollery, \"that your notion, of what is called a Great\r\nMedicine, needs correction. The Great Medicine among the Indians is less\r\na bolus than a man in grave esteem for his politic sagacity.\"\r\n\r\n\"And is not my friend politic? Is not my friend sagacious? By your own\r\ndefinition, is not my friend a Great Medicine?\"\r\n\r\n\"No, he is an operator, a Mississippi operator; an equivocal character.\r\nThat he is such, I little doubt, having had him pointed out to me as\r\nsuch by one desirous of initiating me into any little novelty of this\r\nwestern region, where I never before traveled. And, sir, if I am not\r\nmistaken, you also are a stranger here (but, indeed, where in this\r\nstrange universe is not one a stranger?) and that is a reason why I felt\r\nmoved to warn you against a companion who could not be otherwise than\r\nperilous to one of a free and trustful disposition. But I repeat the\r\nhope, that, thus far at least, he has not succeeded with you, and trust\r\nthat, for the future, he will not.\"\r\n\r\n\"Thank you for your concern; but hardly can I equally thank you for so\r\nsteadily maintaining the hypothesis of my friend's objectionableness.\r\nTrue, I but made his acquaintance for the first to-day, and know little\r\nof his antecedents; but that would seem no just reason why a nature like\r\nhis should not of itself inspire confidence. And since your own\r\nknowledge of the gentleman is not, by your account, so exact as it might\r\nbe, you will pardon me if I decline to welcome any further suggestions\r\nunflattering to him. Indeed, sir,\" with friendly decision, \"let us\r\nchange the subject.\"\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 6"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJMVHXZ1WH9JRWME9D7FK","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK9ZH0XMEDC92VAJ49W2E","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:59.985Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:13.651Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}