“And the rest syrup and coloring matter, I suppose.  A fine vitalizer!”

“It gets the money,” retorted the other.

“And your soothing, balmy oils for cancer?  Arsenious acid, I suppose, to eat it out?”

“What if it is?  As well that as anything else—­for cancer.”

“Humph!  I happened to see a patient you’d treated, two years ago, by that mild method.  It wasn’t cancer at all; only a benign tumor.  Your soothing oils burned her breast off, like so much fire.  She’s dead now.”

“Oh, we all make mistakes.”

“But we don’t all commit murder.”

“Rub it in, if you like to.  You can’t make me mad.  Just the same, if it wasn’t for what you’ve done for Boyee—­”

“Well, what about ’Boyee’?” broke in his persecutor quite undisturbed.  “He seems a perfectly decent sort of human integer.”

The bold eyes shifted and softened abruptly.  “He’s the big thing in my life.”

“Bringing him up to the trade, eh?”

“No, damn you!”

“Damn me, if you like.  But don’t damn him.  He seems to be a bit too good for this sort of thing.”

“To tell you the truth,” said the other gloomily, “I was going to quit at the end of this year, anyway.  But I guess this ends it now.  Accidents like this hurt business.  I guess this closes my tour.”

“Is the game playing out?”

“Not exactly!  Do you know what I took out of this town last night?  One hundred and ten good dollars.  And to-morrow’s consultation is good for fifty more.  That ‘spiel’ of mine is the best high-pitch in the business.”

“High-pitch?”

“High-pitching,” explained the quack, “is our term for the talk, the patter.  You can sell sugar pills to raise the dead with a good-enough high-pitch.  I’ve done it myself—­pretty near.  With a voice like mine, it’s a shame to drop it.  But I’m getting tired.  And Boyee ought to have schooling.  So, I’ll settle down and try a regular proprietary trade with the Mixture and some other stuff I’ve got.  I guess I can make printer’s ink do the work.  And there’s millions in it if you once get a start.  More than you can say of regular practice.  I tried that, too, before I took up itinerating.”  He grinned.  “A midge couldn’t have lived on my receipts.  By the way,” he added, becoming grave, “what was your game in cutting in on my ’spiel’?”

“Just curiosity.”

“You ain’t a government agent or a medical society investigator?”

The physician pulled out a card and handed it over.  It read, “Mark Elliot, Surgeon, U.S.N.”

“Don’t lose any sleep over me,” he advised, then went to open the outer door, in response to a knock.

A spectacled young man appeared.  “They told me Professor Certain was here,” he said.

“What is it?” asked the quack.

“About that stabbing.  I’m the editor of the weekly ‘Palladium.’”

“Glad to see you, Mr. Editor.  Always glad to see the Press.  Of course you won’t print anything about this affair?”