sat in his room for a couple of days, his leg on a chair, and looked
at Mont Blanc, exquisite in its fairy splendor against the far, pale sky.
It brought him no consolation. On the contrary it reminded him of Hannibal
and other conquerors leading their footsore armies over the Alps. When he
allowed a despondent fancy to wander uncontrolled, he saw great multitudes
of men staggering shoeless along with feet and ankles inflamed to the color
of tomatoes. Then he pulled himself together and set his teeth. Dennymede
came to visit him and heard with dismay the verdict of science, which
crushed his hope of a high position in the new Army Contract Department.
But Sypher reassured him as to his material welfare by increasing his
commission on foreign sales; whereupon he began to take a practical view of
the situation.

"We can't expect a patent medicine, sir, to do everything."

"I quite agree with you," said Sypher. "It can't make two legs grow where
one grew before, but it ought to cure blisters on the heel. Apparently it
won't. So we are where we were before I met Monsieur Hegisippe Cruchot. The
only thing is that we mustn't now lead people to suppose that it's good for
blisters."

"They must take their chance," said Dennymede. He was a sharp, black-haired
young man, with a worried brow and a bilious complexion. The soothing of
the human race with Sypher's Balm of Gilead mattered nothing to him. His
atrabiliar temperament rendered his attitude towards humanity rather
misanthropic than otherwise. "Indeed," he continued, "I don't see why you
shouldn't try for the army contracts without referring specifically to sore
feet."

"_Caveat emptor_," said Sypher.

"I beg your pardon?" said Dennymede, who had no Latinity.

"It means, let the buyer beware; it's up to the buyer to see what stuff
he's buying."

"Naturally. It's the first principle of business."

Sypher turned his swift clear glance on him and banged the window-ledge
with his hand.

"It's the first principle of damned knavery and thieving," he cried, "and
if I thought anyone ran my business on it, they'd go out of my employ at
once! It's at the root of all the corruption that exists in modern trade.
It salves the conscience of the psalm-singing grocer who puts ground beans
into his coffee. It's a damnable principle."

He thumped the window-ledge again, very angry. The traveler hedged.

"Of course it's immoral to tell lies and say a thing is what it isn't. But