fficiently.

Upon his son's greeting, Dr. Surtaine whirled in his chair.

"Come down to see the old slave at work, eh?" he said.

"Yes, sir." Hal's hand fell on the other's shoulder, and the Doctor's
fingers went up to it for a quick pressure. "I thought I'd like to see
the wheels go 'round."

"You've come to the right spot. This is the good old cash-factory, and
yours truly is the man behind the engine. The State, I'm It, as Napoleon
said to Louis the Quince. Where McBeth sits is the head of the table."

"In other words, a one-man business."

"That's the secret. There's nothing in this shop that I can't do, and
don't do, every now and then, just to keep my hand in. I can put more
pull into an ad. to-day than the next best man in the business. Modesty
isn't my besetting sin, you see, Hal."

"Why should it be? Every brick in this building would give the lie to
it."

"Say every frame on these four walls," suggested Dr. Surtaine with an
expansive gesture.

Following this indication, Hal examined the decorations. On every side
were ordinary newspaper advertisements, handsomely mounted, most of them
bearing dates on brass plates. Here and there appeared a circular, or a
typed letter, similarly designated.

Above Dr. Surtaine's desk was a triple setting, a small advertisement, a
larger one, and a huge full-newspaper-page size, each embodying the same
figure, that of a man half-bent over, with his hand to his back and a
lamentable expression on his face.

Certain strongly typed words fairly thrust themselves out of the
surrounding print: "Pain--Back--Take Care--Means Something--Your
Kidneys." And then in dominant presentment--

CERTINA
CURES.

"What do you think of Old Lame-Boy?" asked Dr. Surtaine.

"From an aesthetic point of view?"

"Never mind the aesthetics of it. 'Handsome is as handsome does.'"

"What has that faded beauty done, then?"

"Carried many a thousand of our money to bank for us, Boyee. That's the
ad. that made the business."

"Did you design it?"

"Every word and every line, except that I got a cheap artist to touch up
the drawing a little. Then I plunged. When that copy went out, we had
just fifty thousand dollars in the world, you and I. Before it had been
running three months, I'd spent one hundred thousand dollars more than
we owned, in the newspapers, and had to borrow money right and left to
keep the manufacturing and bottling plant up to the orders. It was a
year before we