“I’ve been thinking—it’s such a shame for you to be wasted this way.... I saw an advertisement and I wrote to it.... I think it would be just the thing for you. Gentlemanly, and yet you could make any amount of money.”
“What is it?” he asked, without much interest.
“Here’s the booklet.” She began to read in a solemn voice, “‘Be your own master! Read what others have done! The Manhattan Institute of Tonico-Therapy. Ten weeks course renders you independent for life. Highly paid selected staff instructs in all branches.’ And it goes on to tell you the theory of it. How all illnesses come from the chemical action of poisons in the stomach. You learn the antidotes for all these poisons, and then how to find which poison is causing the trouble, and there you are! I think—it sounds wonderful.”
“What rot! The ordinary fake!” said Lionel, impatiently.
“And you should read the money the doctors make!”
“It’s a swindle, I tell you! There are any number of them. The rankest sort of fraud.”
Then Minnie showed the cloven hoof.
“What if it is?” she asked, “we’ve got to live. It wouldn’t do any one any harm. I dare say in lots of cases it’s very good——”
“I don’t intend to be a swindler,” he interrupted, “it’s no use talking any more about it. I’m surprised you could consider a thing like that.”
“Very well, then, think of something better.”