The barber began to look gloomy and ran his fingers inside the Post Man's shirt collar, tearing out the button hole, and the collar button flew out the door across the sidewalk into the gutter. "I went to work next day," said the barber, "and filed application at Washington for a patent on my tonic and arranged with a big drug firm in Houston to put it on the market for me. I had a million dollars in sight. I fixed up a room where I mixed the tonic--for I wouldn't let the druggists or anybody else know what was in it--and then the druggists bottled and labeled it. "I quit working in the shop and put all my time into my tonic. "Mr. Plunket came into the shop once or twice within the next two weeks and his hair was still growing finely. Pretty soon I had about $200 worth of the tonic ready for the market, and Mr. Plunket was to come in town on Saturday and give me his testimonial to print on advertising dodgers and circulars with which I was going to flood the country. "I was waiting in the room where I mixed my tonic about 11 o'clock Saturday when the door opened and Mr. Plunket came in. He was very much excited and very angry. "'Look here,' he cried, 'what's the matter with your infernal stuff?' "He pulled off his hat, and his head was as shiny and bare as a china egg. "'It all came out,' he said roughly. 'It was growing all right until yesterday morning, when it commenced to fall out, and this morning there wasn't a hair left.' "I examined his head and there wasn't the ghost of a hair to be found anywhere. "'What's the good of your stuff," he asked angrily, 'if it makes your hair grow and then all fall out again?' "'For heaven's sake, Mr. Plunket,' I said, 'don't say anything about it or you'll ruin me. I've got every cent I've got in the world invested in this hair tonic, and I've got to get my money back. It made your hair grow, give me the testimonial and let me sell what I've got put up, anyway. You are $250 ahead on it and you ought to help me out of it.' "He was very mad and cut up quite roughly and said he had been swindled and would expose the tonic as a fraud and a lot of things like that. Finally he agreed that if I would pay him $100 more he would give me the testimonial to the effect that the tonic had made his hair grow and say nothing about its having fallen out again. If I could sell what I had put up at $1.00 per bottle I would come out about even. "I went out and borrowed the money and paid it to him and he signed the testimonial and left." * * * * * "Did you sell your tonic out?" asked the Post Man, trying to speak in a tone calculated not to give offense. The barber gave him a look of derisive contempt and then said in a tone of the utmost sarcasm: "Oh, yes, I sold it out. I sold exactly five bottles, and the purchasers, after using the mixture faithfully for a month, came back and demanded their money. Not one of them that used it ever had a new hair to start on his head."