“Oh, yes, I know:  we cure Bright’s disease, don’t we?  Well, if there’s anything worse for old George W. Bright’s favorite ailment than raw alcohol, then my high-priced physizzian don’t know his business.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Hal with a white face.  “Do I understand that Certina—­”

“Say, wassa matter?” broke in Certina Charley, in concern; “you look sick.”

“Never mind me.  You go on and tell me the truth about this thing.”

“I guess I been talkin’ too much,” muttered Certina Charley, dismayed.  He gulped down the last of his champagne with a tremulous hand.  “This’s my second bottle,” he explained.  “An’ brandy in between.  Say, I thought you knew all about the business.”

“I know enough about it now so that I’ve got to know the rest.”

“You—­you won’t gimme away to the Chief?  I didn’t mean to show up his game.  I’m—­I’m pretty strong for the old boy, myself.”

“I won’t give you away.  Go on.”

“Whaddye want to know, else?”

“Is there anything that Certina is good for?”

“Sure!  Didn’t I tell you?  It’s the finest bracer—­”

“As a cure?”

“It’s just as good as any other prup-proprietary.”

“That isn’t the question.  You say it is harmful in Bright’s disease.”

“Why, looka here, Mr. Surtaine, you know yourself that booze is poison to any feller with kidney trouble.  Rheumatism, too, for that matter.  But they get the brace, and they think they’re better, and that helps push the trade, too.”

“And that’s where my money came from,” said Hal, half to himself.

“It’s all in the trade,” cried Certina Charley, summoning his powers to a defense.  “There’s lots that’s worse.  There’s the cocaine dopes for catarrh; they’ll send a well man straight to hell in six months.  There’s the baby dopes; and the G-U cures that keep the disease going when right treatment could cure it; and the methylene blue—­”

“Stop it!  Stop it!” cried Hal.  “I’ve heard enough.”

Alcohol, the juggler with men’s thoughts, abruptly pressed upon a new center of ideation in Certina Charley’s brain.

“D’you think I like it?” he sniveled, with lachrymose sentimentality.  “I gotta make a living, haven’t I?  Here’s you and me, two pretty decent young fellers, having to live on a fake.  Well,” he added with solacing philosophy, “if we didn’t get it, somebody else would.”

“Tell me one thing,” said Hal, getting to his feet.  “Does my father know all this that you’ve been telling me?”

“Does the Chief know it? Does he?  Why, say, my boy, Ol’ Doc Surtaine, he wrote the proprietary medicine business!”

Misgivings beset the optimistic soul of Certina Charley as his guest faded from his vision; faded and vanished without so much as a word of excuse or farewell.  For once Hal had been forgetful of courtesy.  Gazing after him his host addressed the hovering waiter:—­