V. THE ADVENTURE OF THE OFFICE SCREEN


It is not to be supposed that all the enterprises of the Company of
Disentanglers were fortunate. Nobody can command success, though, on the
other hand, a number of persons, civil and military, are able to keep her
at a distance with surprising uniformity. There was one class of
business which Merton soon learned to renounce in despair, just as some
sorts of maladies defy our medical science.

'It is curious, and not very creditable to our chemists,' Merton said,
'that love philtres were once as common as seidlitz powders, while now we
have lost that secret. The wrong persons might drink love philtres, as
in the case of Tristram and Iseult. Or an unskilled rural practitioner
might send out the wrong drug, as in the instance of Lucretius, who went
mad in consequence.'

'Perhaps,' remarked Logan, 'the chemist was voting at the Comitia, and it
was his boy who made a mistake about the mixture.'

'Very probably, but as a rule, the love philtres _worked_. Now, with all
our boasted progress, the secret is totally lost. Nothing but a love
philtre would be of any use in some cases. There is Lord Methusalem,
eighty if he is a day.'

'Methusalem has been unco "wastefu' in wives"!' said Logan.

'His family have been consulting me--the women in tears. He _will_ marry
his grandchildren's German governess, and there is nothing to be done. In