“Good!” he sniffed.  “How clean and appetizing it smells!”

Enthusiasm warmed the big man’s voice once more.

“Just what it is, too!” he exclaimed.  “Now you’ve hit on the second big point in Certina’s success.  It’s easy to take.  What’s the worst thing about doctors’ doses?  They’re nasty.  The very thought of ’em would gag a cat.  Tell people that here’s a remedy better than the old medicine and pleasant to the taste, and they’ll take to it like ducks to water.  Certina is the first proprietary that ever tasted good.  Next to Old Lame-Boy, it’s my biggest idea.”

“Are we going into the mixing-room?” asked his son.

“If you like.  But you’ll see less than you smell.”

So it proved.  A heavy, wet, rich vapor shrouded the space about a huge cauldron, from which came a sound of steady plashing.  Presently an attendant gnome, stripped to the waist, appeared, nodded to Dr. Surtaine, called to some one back in the mist, and shortly brought Hal a small glass brimming with a pale-brown liquid.

“Just fresh,” he said.  “Try it.”

“My kidneys are all right,” protested Hal.  “I don’t need any medicine.”

“Take it for a bracer.  It won’t hurt you,” urged the gnome.

Hal looked at his father, and, at his nod, put his lips to the glass.

“Why, it tastes like spiced whiskey!” he cried.

“Not so far out of the way.  Columbian spirits, caramel, cinnamon and cardamom, and a touch of the buchu.  Good for the blues.  Finish it.”

Hal did so and was aware of an almost instantaneous glow.

“Strong stuff, sir,” he said to his father as they emerged into a clearer atmosphere.

“They like it strong,” replied the other curtly.  “I give ’em what they like.”

The attendant gnome followed.  “Mr. Dixon was looking for you, Dr. Surtaine.  Here he comes, now.”

“Dixon’s our chief chemist,” explained Dr. Surtaine as a shabby, anxious-looking man ambled forward.

“We’re having trouble with that last lot of cascara, sir,” said he lugubriously.

“In the Number Four?”

“Yes, sir.  It don’t seem to have any strength.”

“Substitute senna.”  So offhand was the tone that it sounded like a suggestion rather than an order.

As the latter, however, the chemist contentedly took it.

“It’ll cost less,” he observed; “and I guess it’ll do the work just as well.”

To Hal it seemed a somewhat cavalier method of altering a medical formula.  But his mind, accustomed to easy acceptance of the business which so luxuriously supplied his wants, passed the matter over lightly.

“First-rate man, Dixon,” remarked Dr. Surtaine as they passed along.  “College-bred, and all that.  Boozes, though.  I only pay him twenty-five a week, and he’s mighty glad to get it.”

On the way back to the offices, they traversed the checking and accounting rooms, the agency department, the great rows of desks whereat the shipping and mailing were looked after, and at length stopped before the door of a small office occupied by a dozen women.  One of these, a full-bosomed, slender, warm-skinned girl with a wealth of deep-hued, rippling red hair crowning her small, well-poised head, rose and came to speak to Dr. Surtaine.