Theodore, a laborious young man, came to me one day, saying, "I am afraid I have a cancer on one side of my nose, and I wish you would look at it." Accordingly I made a careful examination of the sore, taking care to give him a little pain, and, at the same time, as a most indispensable ingredient, to look "wondrous wise;" after which the following conversation, in its essentials, took place between us:-- "What makes you suspect this sore to be a cancer?" "There are various reasons. Many of the neighbors think it to be so. Then, too, it has a very strong resemblance to the cancer on Mrs. Miller's lip. And then, again, it burns and itches and smarts, just as people say cancers always do." "How long have you been troubled with it?" "It is three months or more since I first observed it; but it has given me very little uneasiness or trouble till within a few weeks." "What have you done for it?" "It would take a long time to tell you of all I have done for it. Every thing I could hear of, far or near, has been applied; from plasters of clay and chalk, to plasters of vitriol and other poisonous things. But I have used most a plaster made of chalk and the white of an egg. I do not know that any thing I have done has benefited it." "Perhaps you have not persevered in the use of any thing long enough. How long is it, pray, since you began to use the chalk and egg plaster?" "Oh, it is three weeks, or more." "And how long is it usual to wear it? do you know?" "Mrs. Lovejoy, who advised it, only said, 'Use it as long as it appears to do good.'" "Is it a favorite remedy with her?" "Very much so." "Has any one been really cured by it?" "Oh, yes. Mr. Browning, the gardener, was entirely cured by it; so, at least, people say." "Any one else?" "Yes, half a hundred or more have tried it." "But how many have been cured by it? That is my main inquiry." "That I cannot tell you. I have heard of no positive cure but that of Mr. Browning." "It is almost incredible, my dear sir, that any thing like fifty cases can have come within such a small range of population as the village or even the town in which Mrs. Lovejoy resides. Do you mean as you say?" "Well, then, a great many. I know of a dozen, most certainly; and I have heard of a great many more. I venture, at least, to say twenty." "And you have no positive knowledge of but one permanent cure among them all?" "Only one, I meant to say, that I can call by name. There must be many more, I am sure, but I have not their names." "Have you much confidence in a method of treatment that succeeds once in fifty times, or even once in twenty?" "Not much, I confess; but if it now and then succeed, that is something. You know that they who run in a race _all_ run, though but one receives the prize." "Are you quite sure there _is_ any gain or prize, after all?" "Do you mean to ask if I believe Mr. Browning was really cured?" "Yes." "How could I doubt what I have seen and known?"