ell, then?"

"But what, what--how, how--ugh, ugh!"

"Why, didn't he tell you?"

"No."

"What! Didn't he tell you that it was a secret, a mystery?"

"Oh--yes."

"Well, then?"

"But I have no bond."

"Don't need any with Mr. Truman. Mr. Truman's word is his bond."

"But how am I to get my profits--ugh, ugh!--and my money back? Don't
know anything. Ugh, ugh!"

"Oh, you must have confidence."

"Don't say that word again. Makes my head spin so. Oh, I'm so old and
miserable, nobody caring for me, everybody fleecing me, and my head
spins so--ugh, ugh!--and this cough racks me so. I say again, I ought to
have a guard_ee_an."

"So you ought; and Mr. Truman is your guardian to the extent you
invested with him. Sorry we missed him just now. But you'll hear from
him. All right. It's imprudent, though, to expose yourself this way. Let
me take you to your berth."

Forlornly enough the old miser moved slowly away with him. But, while
descending a stairway, he was seized with such coughing that he was fain
to pause.

"That is a very bad cough."

"Church-yard--ugh, ugh!--church-yard cough.--Ugh!"

"Have you tried anything for it?"

"Tired of trying. Nothing does me any good--ugh! ugh! Not even the
Mammoth Cave. Ugh! ugh! Denned there six months, but coughed so bad the
rest of the coughers--ugh! ugh!--black-balled me out. Ugh, ugh! Nothing
does me good."

"But have you tried the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, sir?"

"That's what that Truman--ugh, ugh!--said I ought to take.
Yarb-medicine; you are that yarb-doctor, too?"

"The same. Suppose you try one of my boxes now. Trust me, from what I
know of Mr. Truman, he is not the gentleman to recommend, even in behalf
of a friend, anything of whose excellence he is not conscientiously
satisfied."

"Ugh!--how much?"

"Only two dollars a box."

"Two dollars? Why don't you say two millions? ugh, ugh! Two dollars,
that's two hundred cents; that's eight hundred farthings; that's two
thousand mills; and all for one little box of yarb-medicine. My head, my
head!--oh, I ought to have a guard_ee_an for; my head. Ugh, ugh, ugh,
ugh!"

"Well, if two dollars a box seems too much, take a dozen boxes at twenty
dollars; and that will be getting four boxes for nothing, and you need
use none but those four, the rest you can retail out at a premium, and
so cure your cough, and make money by it. Come, you had better do it.
Cash down. Can fill an order in a day or two. Here now," p