“Fine. Go to-morrow, confidently, and get a job, wiring. If you do, you will find all your pains and aches gradually disappearing. If I am wrong, I will charge you nothing for this call. I know I’m right.”
“How much do I owe you, doctor?” asked Stalton, getting out of bed, as the physician started toward the door.
“It will be twenty-five dollars,” he replied. “But I would like it to be the next twenty-five you earn. Good-night.”
He extended his hand.
“Good-night, sir,” said Stalton, taking it. “I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.”
When Mauney returned to his room, after accompanying Adamson to the door, he found Fred Stalton walking up and down.
“What do you know about that, Mauney?” he asked. “That bird certainly put his finger on the tender spot that time. In one way I feel like a damned slacker now. Don’t mention this to anybody, Mauney. But Adamson is right. Why, that pain is gone already. I’m a liar if it isn’t. No drugs about that bird. I’m going out to-morrow to buck the old world for a living again.”
A few weeks saw a great change in Stalton. He embraced work with a good will and never once faltered. He obtained a good position with a down-town electrical company, and came home each night hungry and happy. Gertrude was puzzled completely.
“Why, Freddie!” she said one night, “you’re all better. What on earth did it? You look ten years younger, and I haven’t heard a word about teeth for a long time.”
“Do you remember that last bottle of Burton’s Bitter Tonic I punished?” he asked with a broad smile. “Well, it’s the greatest stuff on record. I’m going to pose for a portrait and give ’em a red-hot personal letter of recommendation to put in the newspaper. ‘It has cured me—why not others? Eventually—why not now? At all druggists, the same wonderful, world-beating, little tonic!’”