the matter with you? You're
bright enough ordinarily, Helena, and, Harry, you're no dub--what's the
matter with you? Can't you see it--can't you see it! Why, it's sticking
out a mile--it's _waiting_ for us! The whole plant's there and all we've
got to do is get steam under the boilers. We'll have 'em coming for the
cure from every State in the Union, and begging us to let them throw
their diamond tiaras at us for a look-in at the shrine. Don't you see
it--can't you get it--can't you _get_ it!"

Helena bent suddenly over Doc Madison's shoulder, her eyes opening wide
with dawning comprehension.

"The cure?" she breathed.

"Sure--the cure," said Doc Madison earnestly. "The new cult--that's us.
Get the people talking, show 'em something, and you'll have to put up
fences and 'keep off the grass' signs to stop the lame and the halt and
the blind and the neurasthenics from crowding and suffocating to death
for want of air. We'll start a shrine down there that'll be a winner,
and the railroads will be running excursion-rate pilgrimages inside of
two months."

Pale Face Harry's chair creaked, as, like the Flopper, he now crowded it
in toward the table.

"I get you!" said he feverishly. "I get you! I've read about them
shrines--only you gotter have churches, and a carload of crutches, and
that sort of thing laying around."

Doc Madison smiled pleasantly.

"Yes; you've got me, Harry--only we'll do the stage setting a little
differently. Mostly what is required is--faith. Get them going on that,
and everybody that's sick or near-sick in this great United States,
that's got the swellest collection of boobs and millionaires on earth,
will swarm thitherward like bees--there won't be any one left in the
sanatoriums throughout the length of this broad land of freedom but the
bell boys and the elevator men. Get them going, and all we've got to do
is look out we don't let anything get by us in the crush--a snowball
rolling down hill will size up like a plugged nickel alongside of a
twenty-dollar gold piece when it gets to the bottom, compared with what
we start rolling."

"I've got you, too," said Helena. "But I don't see where the faith is
coming from, or how you're going to get them coming. You've got to show
them--you said so yourself--even the boobs. How are you going to do
that?"

"Well," said Doc Madison placidly, "we'll start the show with--a
miracle. I haven't thought of anything more effective than that so
far."

"