"It is."

"Then you haven't seen the letter written by the superintendent of our
Sunday School to the Certina Company."

"What kind of a letter?"

"A testimonial letter--for which your two thousand dollars is payment, I
suppose."

"Two thousand for a church testimonial!" Dr. Surtaine chuckled at his
caller's innocence. "Why, I wouldn't pay that for a United States
Senator. Besides," he added virtuously, "Certina doesn't buy its
testimonials."

"Then it's an unfortunate coincidence that your check should have come
right on top of Mr. Smithson's very ill-advised letter."

By a regular follow-up mechanism devised by himself, every donation by
Dr. Surtaine was made the basis of a shrewd attempt to extract from the
beneficiary an indorsement of Certina's virtues, or, if not that, of the
personal character and professional probity of its proprietor. This is
what had happened in the instance of the check to Mr. Hale's church,
Smithson being the medium through whom the attempt was made.

The quack saw no occasion to explain this to his inquisitor. So he
merely said: "I never saw any such letter," which was, in a literal
sense, true.