“Headache all gone, hey?”

“Almost entirely.  I wish you would give me the name of the medicine.  I will make a memorandum—­”

“Nix,” said Klinker.

“Nix?  Nux I have heard of, but ...”

“Hold on,” laughed Klinker, as he saw Queed preparing to enter Nix in his note-book.  “That ain’t the name of it, and I ain’t going to give it to you.  Why, that slop only covers up the trouble, Doc—­does more harm than good in the long run.  You got to go deeper and take away the cause.  Come back here and I’ll show you your real medicine.”

“I’m afraid—­”

“Aw, don’t flash that open-faced clock of yours on me.  That’s your trouble, Doc—­matching seconds against your studies.  It won’t take a minute, and you can catch it up eating supper faster if you feel you got to.”

Queed, curious, as well as decidedly impressed by Klinker’s sure knowledge in a field where he was totally ignorant, was persuaded.  The two groped their way down a long dark passage at the rear of the shop, and into a large room like a cavern.  Klinker lit a flaring gas-jet and made a gesture.

“The Mercury Athletic Club gymnasier and sporting-room.”

It was a basement room, with two iron-grated windows at the back.  Two walls were lined with stout shelves, partially filled with boxes.  The remaining space, including wall-space, was occupied by the most curious and puzzling contrivances that Queed had ever seen.  Out of the glut of enigmas there was but one thing—­a large mattress upon the floor—­that he could recognize without a diagram.

“Your caretaker sleeps here, I perceive.”

Klinker laughed.  “Look around you, Doc.  Take a good gaze.”

Doc obeyed.  Klinker picked up a “sneaker” from the floor and hurled it with deadly precision at a weight-and-pulley across the room.

“There’s your medicine, Doc!”

Orange-stick in mouth, he went around like a museum guide, introducing the beloved apparatus to the visitor under its true names and uses, the chest-weights, dumb-bells and Indian clubs, flying-rings, a rowing-machine, the horizontal and parallel bars, the punching-bag and trapeze.  Klinker lingered over the ceremonial; it was plain that the gymnasier was very dear to him.  In fact, he loved everything pertaining to bodily exercise and manly sport; he caressed a boxing-glove as he never caressed a lady’s hand; the smell of witch-hazel on a hard bare limb was more titillating to him than any intoxicant.  The introduction over, Klinker sat down tenderly on the polished seat of the rowing-machine, and addressed Doctor Queed, who stood with an academic arm thrown gingerly over the horizontal bar.

“There’s your medicine, Doe.  And if you don’t take it—­well, it may be the long good-by for yours before the flowers bloom again.”

“How do you mean, Mr. Klinker—­there is my medicine?”

“I mean, you need half an hour to an hour’s hardest kind of work right here every day, reg’lar as meals.”