"Roger," he said, when the vehicle started towards the Spolger residence, "there may be something in that idea of yours after all."
"I think so. But why do you say that?"
"Because I've just discovered that Spolger puts morphia in his pills."
[Chapter 12]
The Spolger Soother
The residence of Mr. Spolger, situate about a mile beyond the town, was a large and particularly ugly building constructed on strictly hygienic principles. The inventor of the "Soother" had lived in an ancient mansion, badly drained and badly ventilated, which had been erected many years before; but when his son entered in possession of his inheritance, he had pulled down the old house, and built a barrack-like structure in which beauty gave way entirely to utility. Square, aggressively square, with walls of glaring white stone, it stood in the midst of a large piece of ground perfectly denuded of trees, as Mr. Spolger deemed trees damp and unhealthy, so the bare space was gravelled and asphalted like a barrack-yard. Plenty of staring plate-glass windows admitted light into the interior, which was composed of lofty square rooms, lofty oblong corridors, all smoothly whitewashed.
The floors of polished wood, innocent of carpets, were dangerous to the unwary, and the furniture, all of solid oak, was made for strength rather than loveliness. There were few pictures on the walls, as Mr. Spolger thought that looking at works of art strained the optic nerve, and there were no draperies on the windows in case any disease might lurk in them. The bare inside looked out on to the bare barrack ground, and the treeless barrack ground looked into the glaring inside, so it was all very nice and healthy and abominably ugly.
In the midst of this fairy-like creation sat the proprietor thereof, by a hot-air stove, wrapped in a woollen dressing-gown, and engaged in measuring out his daily drops. A respectful manservant, wrinkled like a snake, and black-clothed like a rook, stood beside Mr. Spolger with a small printed form of directions, which he was reading for his master's information, with regard to the effects of the drops. The servant, Gimp by name, was moist about the eyes, a fact which suggested drink, and he read the dull little pamphlet in a subdued whisper which was pleasant to the ears of the valetudinarian.
"The effect of these drops," droned Gimp, with a weary sigh, for the pamphlet was by no means exciting, "is to raise the spirits. Mrs. Mopps, of Whitechapel, who suffered from rheumatics engendered by her daily occupation of charing, was advised to try them by a humble friend who had been cured by them of liver complaint. Mrs. Mopps did so, and took four drops daily in a wine-glassful of gin. She is now cured—"
"Ah!" said Spolger, with great satisfaction, "she is now cured."