“What, in wonder’s name—ugh, ugh!—is he talking about?” asked the old miser, looking up to the herb-doctor.
“Heaven be praised for that!” cried the Missourian.
“Out of his mind, ain’t he?” again appealed the old miser.
“Pray, sir,” said the herb-doctor to the Missourian, “for what were you giving thanks just now?”
“For this: that, with some minds, truth is, in effect, not so cruel a thing after all, seeing that, like a loaded pistol found by poor devils of savages, it raises more wonder than terror—its peculiar virtue being unguessed, unless, indeed, by indiscreet handling, it should happen to go off of itself.”
“I pretend not to divine your meaning there,” said the herb-doctor, after a pause, during which he eyed the Missourian with a kind of pinched expression, mixed of pain and curiosity, as if he grieved at his state of mind, and, at the same time, wondered what had brought him to it, “but this much I know,” he added, “that the general cast of your thoughts is, to say the least, unfortunate. There is strength in them, but a strength, whose source, being physical, must wither. You will yet recant.”
“Recant?”
“Yes, when, as with this old man, your evil days of decay come on, when a hoary captive in your chamber, then will you, something like the dungeoned Italian we read of, gladly seek the breast of that confidence begot in the tender time of your youth, blessed beyond telling if it return to you in age.”
“Go back to nurse again, eh? Second childhood, indeed. You are soft.”
“Mercy, mercy!” cried the old miser, “what is all this!—ugh, ugh! Do talk sense, my good friends. Ain’t you,” to the Missourian, “going to buy some of that medicine?”