"Anybody could get hold of that."
"But you suggest that Alt and Schickel have been on bad terms?"
"That's a better point, Mr. Scarth, that's a much better point," said Dollar, smiling and then ceasing to smile as he produced a magnifying-lens. "Allow me to switch on the electric standard, and do me the favor of examining that handwriting with this loop; it's not very strong, but the best I could get here at the photographer's shop."
"It's certainly not strong enough to show anything fishy, to my inexperience," said Scarth, on a sufficiently close inspection.
"Now look at this one."
Dollar had produced a second prescription from the same pocket as before. At first sight they seemed identical.
"Is this another forgery?" inquired Scarth, with a first faint trace of irony.
"No. That's the correct prescription, rewritten by Alt at my request, as he is positive he wrote it originally."
"I see now. There are two more noughts mixed up with the other hieroglyphs."
"They happen to make all the difference between life and death," said Dollar gravely. "Yet they are not by any means the only difference here."