"Come, master," said he, "come, you never mean to give up all
that good money--there's fifty guineas, and more, in that purse!"
"All the more reason to return it," said I.
"No, don't--don't go a-wasting good money like that--it's like
throwing it away!" But shaking off the fellow's importunate
hand, I approached, and saluted the venerable man.
"Sir," said I, "you have had your pocket picked."
He turned and regarded me with a pair of deep-set, very bright
eyes, and blew a whiff of smoke slowly into the air.
"Sir," he replied, "I found that out five minutes ago."
"The fact seems to trouble you very little," said I.
"There, sir, being young, and judging exteriorly, you are wrong.
There is recounted somewhere in the classics an altogether
incredible story of a Spartan youth and a fox: the boy, with the
animal hid beneath his cloak, preserved an unruffled demeanor
despite the animal's tearing teeth, until he fell down and died.
In the same way, young sir, no man can lose fifty-odd guineas
from his pocket and remain unaffected by the loss."
"Then, sir," said I, "I am happy to be able to return your purse
to you." He took it, opened it, glanced over its contents,
looked at me, took out two guineas, looked at me again, put the
money back, closed the purse, and, dropping it into his pocket,
bowed his acknowledgment. Having done which, he made room for me
to sit beside him.
"Sir," said he, chuckling, "hark to that lovely rascal in the
cart, yonder--hark to him; Galen was an ass and Hippocrates a
dunce beside this fellow--hark to him."
"There's nothing like pills!" the Quack-salver was saying at the
top of his voice; "place one upon the tip o' the tongue--in this
fashion--take a drink o' water, beer, or wine, as the case may
be, give a couple o' swallers, and there you are. Oh, there's
nothing in the world like pills, and there's nothing like my
Elixir Anthropos for coughs, colds, and the rheumatics, for sore
throats, sore eyes, sore backs--good for the croup, measles, and
chicken-pox--a certain cure for dropsy, scurvy, and the king's
evil; there's no disease or ailment, discovered or invented, as
my pills won't soothe, heal, ha-meliorate, and charm away, and
all I charge is one shilling a box. Hand 'em round, Jonas."
Whereupon the fellow in the clown's dress, stepping down from the
cart, began handing out the boxes of pills and taking in the
shillings as fast as he conveniently could.