no doubt to order another
buttered tea-cake!

He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia," he said, "our
Western Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science.
In the East, I've been told--"

He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium.

I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here," I said, "who told you
about my great-grandmother's recipes?"

"Well," he fenced.

"Every time we've met for a week," I said, "and we've met pretty
often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of
mine."

"Well," he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is
so. I had it--"

"From Pattison?"

"Indirectly," he said, which I believe was lying, "yes."

"Pattison," I said, "took that stuff at his own risk."

He pursed his mouth and bowed.

"My great-grandmother's recipes," I said, "are queer things to handle.
My father was near making me promise--"

"He didn't?"

"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once."

"Ah!... But do you think--? Suppose--suppose there did happen to be
one--"

"The things are curious documents," I said.

"Even the smell of 'em.... No!"

But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I was
always a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall
on me suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed
with Pyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed
me to say, "Well, TAKE the risk!" The little affair of Pattison to which
I have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn't
concern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used
then was safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole,
I was inclined to doubt their safety pretty completely.

Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned--

I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immense
undertaking.

That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandalwood box out of my
safe and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote the
recipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of
a miscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last
degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family,
with its Indian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of
Hindustani from generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain
sailing. But I found the one that I knew was there