shavings of his real work, he created a prosperity quite beyond anything
that his simple-minded predecessor had ever hoped for, even at the most
sanguine epoch of his life. The young man's adventurous endowments were
miraculously alive, and connecting themselves with his remarkable ability
for solid research, and perhaps his conscience being as yet imperfectly
developed (as it sometimes lies dormant in the young), he spared not to
produce compounds which, if the names were anywise to be trusted, would
supersede all other remedies, and speedily render any medicine a needless
thing, making the trade of apothecary an untenable one, and the title of
Doctor obsolete. Whether there was real efficacy in these nostrums, and
whether their author himself had faith in them, is more than can safely be
said; but, at all events, the public believed in them, and thronged to the
old and dim sign of the Brazen Serpent, which, though hitherto familiar to
them and their forefathers, now seemed to shine with auspicious lustre, as
if its old Scriptural virtues were renewed. If any faith was to be put in
human testimony, many marvellous cures were really performed, the fame of
which spread far and wide, and caused demands for these medicines to come
in from places far beyond the precincts of the little town. Our old
apothecary, now degraded by the overshadowing influence of his grandson's
character to a position not much above that of a shop-boy, stood behind
the counter with a face sad and distrustful, and yet with an odd kind of
fitful excitement in it, as if he would have liked to enjoy this new
prosperity, had he dared. Then his venerable figure was to be seen
dispensing these questionable compounds by the single bottle and by the
dozen, wronging his simple conscience as he dealt out what he feared was
trash or worse, shrinking from the reproachful eyes of every ancient
physician who might chance to be passing by, but withal examining closely
the silver, or the New England coarsely printed bills, which he took in
payment, as if apprehensive that the delusive character of the commodity
which he sold might be balanced by equal counterfeiting in the money