"Yes, sir," said the Medicine Man, as he turned to go, "you will find my Magic Elixir all that I claim it to be. It will bring back youth and beauty to the aged. It will give sight to eyes that see not, hearing to deaf ears, speech to the tongue-tied and motion to limbs that have never moved before. It will also cure whooping-cough."
"I hope so," said the old man in an eager voice. He had heard only one word in six of the stranger's talk. "I hope so, for I need it very much. Shall I take it all at once, or--" But already the Medicine Man was halfway down the road, with the gold coin which the old man had given him safe in his deepest pocket. The old man returned into his shop, blinking more than ever, and stumbling over the piled-up rubbish as he went. It was an abominably crowded little room. Each corner, each shelf, each hook in wall or ceiling was occupied. Everything was piled high or filled up with something else.
In the midst of all kinds of curiosities, the Lion Passant stood waiting. He had been waiting there so many years that the Old Curiosity Shop man had quite given up hope that any one would ever come for him. The Lion was very old; older than the shop, older than the old man who kept it, older than anything else in the shop--and that was saying much.
The Lion was cobwebby and scarred; but, notwithstanding, he was a fine figure of a beast. He had been finely carved out of oak and colored a warm gules, though now somewhat faded. He was carved in the attitude of marching along a parti-colored pole of gules and silver. His dexter paw was raised in the air, his red tongue hung out and his tail was curved gracefully over his back. There was something which I cannot exactly describe of grand and dignified about the Lion Passant,--what the books call a "decayed gentility."
[Illustration: HE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY TALKING WITH THE STRANGER]
The old man stumbled and blinked his way toward the door at the rear of the shop. He was eager to try the Elixir of Life and become young again, and he hurried faster than was wise in the shadowy labyrinth. Just as he was opposite the Lion Passant, he caught his foot in a sprawling chair and stumbled forward, with both arms stretched out to save himself. Away flew the bottle of Elixir, smash! against the head of the Lion Passant. The glass shivered into a thousand pieces, and the precious golden drops went trickling down over the carved beast, over the table, onto the floor, where it made a dusty pool about the feet of a cracked china cat.
"Oh, me! Oh, me!" groaned the old man. "All my precious youth wasted, and no money left to buy more! Oh, me! What an unlucky day it is!" And he stumbled out to tell his wife all about it. Now, as soon as he had left the shop, strange things began to happen there.
"Marry, come up!" exclaimed the Lion, licking his red tongue. "I am a-weary of this. My leg is asleep." And he set down the dexter paw, which he had been holding in that position for four hundred years or more.