"Very busy, you see, Poynter; I've nearly completed my task, and in a few months, perhaps weeks, the medical world will be startled by my discovery." "What are you going to do with it when you've done?" "Do with it?" "Yes. Now, if I was you, I should say to a friend, `Lend me a thou.,' and then take a little shop, put it up in bottles, with three-halfpenny stamps, and advertise it well as the new patent medicine." "My dear Mr Poynter!" "Hold hard, doctor, I haven't done," he cried, speaking in a hard, browbeating manner, as if he were giving orders. "Give it a spanking name, `Heal-all,' or `Cure all;' won't do to say Kill-all eh? Haw, haw, haw!" He burst into a coarse, loud laugh, and the doctor sank back in his chair, with his brows twitching slightly. "Hold hard, I have it. Nothing like a good name for the fools who swallow everything. Get something out of one of your Greek and Latin physic-books--one of those words like hippocaustus or allegorus, or something they can't understand." "I do not quite see the force of your argument, my dear Mr Poynter," said the doctor blandly. "Not see? Why, man, it would be patent medicine then, and no one could take it from you. Look at Hannodyne--good stuff, too, when you've got a headache in the morning--Government stamp, to imitate which is forgery!" "But still, I--" "Don't see? Nonsense! Make a fortune. You want it. Patients pretty scarce, eh?" He laughed again offensively, and the doctor winced, but kept up his bland smooth smile. "And suppose I took your advice, my dear Poynter, where is the friend to lend me a thousand pounds?" "Ah! where's the friend!" said Poynter, with a meaning look. "P'r'aps I know the friend, if things went as he wanted." The doctor's face changed slightly, but his visitor was too obtuse to see it. "And would you suggest that I should--er--preside in the little shop and sell the allegorus?" "Ah, that ain't a bad name, is it?" said Poynter, giving his head a shake in the stiff collar in which it rested as an egg does in a cup. "No, not you; not businesslike enough. Make Hendon do that." "Ah," said the doctor slowly, as he took up the bottle, removed the stopper, and smelled the contents before moistening one finger and tasting it. "You'll end by poisoning yourself with that stuff, doctor," said Poynter, chuckling. "No," he said blandly, "no, my dear James Poynter, no; it is a life-giver, not a destroyer. Now, if you were to take, say, twenty drops in water--" "With sugar?" said Poynter, grinning. "Yes, with sugar, if you liked. There's no objection to flavouring the vehicle--water." "Vehicle--water? Why, I never heard of water being called a vehicle! Thought vehicle meant a carriage or trap."