“We can’t expect a patent medicine, sir, to do everything.”

“I quite agree with you,” said Sypher.  “It can’t make two legs grow where one grew before, but it ought to cure blisters on the heel.  Apparently it won’t.  So we are where we were before I met Monsieur Hegisippe Cruchot.  The only thing is that we mustn’t now lead people to suppose that it’s good for blisters.”

“They must take their chance,” said Dennymede.  He was a sharp, black-haired young man, with a worried brow and a bilious complexion.  The soothing of the human race with Sypher’s Balm of Gilead mattered nothing to him.  His atrabiliar temperament rendered his attitude towards humanity rather misanthropic than otherwise.  “Indeed,” he continued, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t try for the army contracts without referring specifically to sore feet.”

“Caveat emptor,” said Sypher.

“I beg your pardon?” said Dennymede, who had no Latinity.

“It means, let the buyer beware; it’s up to the buyer to see what stuff he’s buying.”

“Naturally.  It’s the first principle of business.”

Sypher turned his swift clear glance on him and banged the window-ledge with his hand.

“It’s the first principle of damned knavery and thieving,” he cried, “and if I thought anyone ran my business on it, they’d go out of my employ at once!  It’s at the root of all the corruption that exists in modern trade.  It salves the conscience of the psalm-singing grocer who puts ground beans into his coffee.  It’s a damnable principle.”

He thumped the window-ledge again, very angry.  The traveler hedged.

“Of course it’s immoral to tell lies and say a thing is what it isn’t.  But on the other hand no one could run a patent medicine on the lines of warning the public as to what it isn’t good for.  You say on the wrapper it will cure gout and rheumatism.  If a woman buys a bottle and gives it to her child who has got scarlet fever, and the child dies from it, it’s her lookout and not yours.  When a firm does issue a warning such as ’Won’t Wash Clothes,’ it’s a business proceeding for the firm’s own protection.”

“Well, we’ll issue a warning, ‘Won’t Cure Blisters,’” said Sypher.  “I advertise myself as the Friend of Humanity.  I am, according to my lights.  If I let poor fellows on the march reduce their feet to this condition I should be the scourge of mankind like”—­he snapped his fingers trying to recall the name—­“like Atlas—­no it wasn’t Atlas, but no matter.  Not a box of the Cure has been sold without the guarantee stamp of my soul’s conviction on it.”

“The Jebusa Jones people aren’t so conscientious,” said Dennymede.  “I bought a pot of their stuff this morning.  They’ve got a new wrapper.  See.”  He unfolded a piece of paper and pointed out the place to his chief.  “They have a special paragraph in large print:  ’Gives instant relief to blistered feet.  Every mountaineer should carry it in his gripsack.’”