He turned and regarded me with a pair of deep-set, very bright eyes, and blew a whiff of smoke slowly into the air.

“Sir,” he replied, “I found that out five minutes ago.”

“The fact seems to trouble you very little,” said I.

“There, sir, being young, and judging exteriorly, you are wrong.  There is recounted somewhere in the classics an altogether incredible story of a Spartan youth and a fox:  the boy, with the animal hid beneath his cloak, preserved an unruffled demeanor despite the animal’s tearing teeth, until he fell down and died.  In the same way, young sir, no man can lose fifty-odd guineas from his pocket and remain unaffected by the loss.”

“Then, sir,” said I, “I am happy to be able to return your purse to you.”  He took it, opened it, glanced over its contents, looked at me, took out two guineas, looked at me again, put the money back, closed the purse, and, dropping it into his pocket, bowed his acknowledgment.  Having done which, he made room for me to sit beside him.

“Sir,” said he, chuckling, “hark to that lovely rascal in the cart, yonder—­hark to him; Galen was an ass and Hippocrates a dunce beside this fellow—­hark to him.”

“There’s nothing like pills!” the Quack-salver was saying at the top of his voice; “place one upon the tip o’ the tongue—­in this fashion—­take a drink o’ water, beer, or wine, as the case may be, give a couple o’ swallers, and there you are.  Oh, there’s nothing in the world like pills, and there’s nothing like my Elixir Anthropos for coughs, colds, and the rheumatics, for sore throats, sore eyes, sore backs—­good for the croup, measles, and chicken-pox—­a certain cure for dropsy, scurvy, and the king’s evil; there’s no disease or ailment, discovered or invented, as my pills won’t soothe, heal, ha-meliorate, and charm away, and all I charge is one shilling a box.  Hand ’em round, Jonas.”  Whereupon the fellow in the clown’s dress, stepping down from the cart, began handing out the boxes of pills and taking in the shillings as fast as he conveniently could.

“A thriving trade!” said my venerable companion; “it always has been, and always will, for Humanity is a many-headed fool, and loves to be ‘bamboozled.’  These honest folk are probably paying for bread pellets compounded with a little soap, yet will go home, swallow them in all good faith, and think themselves a great deal better for them.”

“And therefore,” said I, “probably derive as much benefit from them as from any drug yet discovered.”

“Young man,” said my companion, giving me a sharp glance, “what do you mean?”

“Plainly, sir, that a man who believes himself cured of a disease is surely on the high road to recovery.”

“But a belief in the efficacy of that rascal’s bread pellets cannot make them anything but bread pellets.”

“No,” said I, “but it may effect great things with the disease.”

“Young man, don’t tell me that you are a believer in Faith Healing, and such-like tomfoolery; disease is a great and terrible reality, and must be met and overcome by a real means.”