ope that,
despite this coward assault, the Samaritan Pain Dissuader stands
unshaken in the confidence of all who hear me!"

But, injured as he was, and patient under it, too, somehow his case
excited as little compassion as his oratory now did enthusiasm. Still,
pathetic to the last, he continued his appeals, notwithstanding the
frigid regard of the company, till, suddenly interrupting himself, as
if in reply to a quick summons from without, he said hurriedly, "I come,
I come," and so, with every token of precipitate dispatch, out of the
cabin the herb-doctor went.

CHAPTER XVIII.

INQUEST INTO THE TRUE CHARACTER OF THE HERB-DOCTOR.

"Sha'n't see that fellow again in a hurry," remarked an auburn-haired
gentleman, to his neighbor with a hook-nose. "Never knew an operator so
completely unmasked."

"But do you think it the fair thing to unmask an operator that way?"

"Fair? It is right."

"Supposing that at high 'change on the Paris Bourse, Asmodeus should
lounge in, distributing hand-bills, revealing the true thoughts and
designs of all the operators present--would that be the fair thing in
Asmodeus? Or, as Hamlet says, were it 'to consider the thing too
curiously?'"

"We won't go into that. But since you admit the fellow to be a
knave----"

"I don't admit it. Or, if I did, I take it back. Shouldn't wonder if,
after all, he is no knave at all, or, but little of one. What can you
prove against him?"

"I can prove that he makes dupes."

"Many held in honor do the same; and many, not wholly knaves, do it
too."

"How about that last?"

"He is not wholly at heart a knave, I fancy, among whose dupes is
himself. Did you not see our quack friend apply to himself his own
quackery? A fanatic quack; essentially a fool, though effectively a
knave."

Bending over, and looking down between his knees on the floor, the
auburn-haired gentleman meditatively scribbled there awhile with his
cane, then, glancing up, said:

"I can't conceive how you, in anyway, can hold him a fool. How he
talked--so glib, so pat, so well."

"A smart fool always talks well; takes a smart fool to be tonguey."

In much the same strain the discussion continued--the hook-nosed
gentleman talking at large and excellently, with a view of demonstrating
that a smart fool always talks just so. Ere long he talked to such
purpose as almost to convince.

Presently, back came the person of whom the auburn-haired gentleman had
predicted that