palpitations of the 'art--what you like, that's all nothing. One drop
and it's gone. Sarsaparilla, and waters this, and pills that, what they
give their pence for, and expect it's going to do them good. Rubbish, I
call it. They buy it, as much as they can put in their insides, and die
just the same. This is different. Twenty years in the East, and this is
what I got. Doctors! I laugh at such people."

Here, with a superior smile, he cast down his eyes again and relapsed
into silence.

No one laughed. Then Fan heard someone near her remark: "He has book-
learning, that's what he has"; to which another voice replied, "Ah, you
may say it, and he has more'n that."

Next to Fan stood a gaunt, aged woman, miserably dressed, and she, too,
listened to these remarks; and presently she pushed her way to the wise
man of the East, and began, "Oh, sir, my heart's that bad--"

"Hush, hush! don't say another word," he interrupted with a majestic wave
of his hand. "You needn't tell me what you have. I saw it all before you
spoke."

He uncorked the phial. "One drop on your tongue will make you whole for
ever. Poor woman! poor woman! how much you have suffered. I know it all.
Sixpence first, if you please. If you were rich I would say a hundred
pounds; but you are poor, and your sixpence shall be more to you in the
Day of Judgment than the hundred pounds of the rich man."

With trembling fingers she brought out her money and counted out
fivepence-halfpenny.