han your game, I'll bet. Name your own fee, now, and
don't be afraid to make it strong."

"I'm not in regular practice. I'm a naval surgeon on leave. Give your
money to those poor devils you swindled to-night. I don't like the smell
of it."

"Oh, you can't rile me," returned the quack. "I don't blame you regulars
for getting sore when you see us fellows culling out coin from under
your very noses, that you can't touch."

"Cull it, and welcome. But don't try to pass it on to me."

"Well, I'd like to do something for you in return for what you did for
my son."

"Would you? Pay me in words, then, if you will and dare. What is your
Vitalizing Mixture?"

"That's my secret."

"Liquor? Eh?"

"Some."

"Morphine?"

"A little."

"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