“Now look here!” blustered Bill, “no monkey business, you know! I’m willing to stand for this experiment, ’cause you paid me, and ’cause none of the other doctors seem to do any good. But no hocus-pocus! No cutting, you know.”
“No, nothing like that,” agreed Fussel, smilingly.
“Perhaps I had better explain,” Professor Snodgrass said.
“Perhaps,” agreed Professor Bailey.
“My friends here,” began Dr. Snodgrass (and how Jerry would have stared had he heard the scientist address Fussel as a “friend”), “my friends,” Professor Snodgrass went on, “have accidentally discovered a valuable medicinal clay.”
“We discovered it,” broke in Fussel, “but it wasn’t until we appealed to you that you suggested a use for it.”
“Well, be that as it may,” went on the professor. “They have found a deposit of a curious clay that, when there is mixed with it certain kinds of medicine, acts as a most efficient poultice, or plaster.”
“Maybe you know what you’re talkin’ about, but I don’t,” grumbled Bill. “All I know is that my legs hurts.”
“Exactly,” said Professor Snodgrass. “Well, I will make it more simple. Did your wife ever put a mustard plaster on you for pain?”
“Indeed she has, and it burned like fire, too!”