“Forgive me,” cried the other, “forgive that imprudent phrase ‘never see you again.’ Though I solely intended it with reference to myself, yet I had forgotten what your sensitiveness might be. I repeat, then, that it may be that we shall not soon have a second interview, so that hereafter, should another of my boxes be needed, you may not be able to replace it except by purchase at the shops; and, in so doing, you may run more or less risk of taking some not salutary mixture. For such is the popularity of the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator—thriving not by the credulity of the simple, but the trust of the wise—that certain contrivers have not been idle, though I would not, indeed, hastily affirm of them that they are aware of the sad consequences to the public. Homicides and murderers, some call those contrivers; but I do not; for murder (if such a crime be possible) comes from the heart, and these men’s motives come from the purse. Were they not in poverty, I think they would hardly do what they do. Still, the public interests forbid that I should let their needy device for a living succeed. In short, I have adopted precautions. Take the wrapper from any of my vials and hold it to the light, you will see water-marked in capitals the word ‘confidence,’ which is the countersign of the medicine, as I wish it was of the world. The wrapper bears that mark or else the medicine is counterfeit. But if still any lurking doubt should remain, pray enclose the wrapper to this address,” handing a card, “and by return mail I will answer.”
At first the sick man listened, with the air of vivid interest, but gradually, while the other was still talking, another strange caprice came over him, and he presented the aspect of the most calamitous dejection.
“How now?” said the herb-doctor.
“You told me to have confidence, said that confidence was indispensable, and here you preach to me distrust. Ah, truth will out!”
“I told you, you must have confidence, unquestioning confidence, I meant confidence in the genuine medicine, and the genuine me.”
“But in your absence, buying vials purporting to be yours, it seems I cannot have unquestioning confidence.”
“Prove all the vials; trust those which are true.”
“But to doubt, to suspect, to prove—to have all this wearing work to be doing continually—how opposed to confidence. It is evil!”
“From evil comes good. Distrust is a stage to confidence. How has it proved in our interview? But your voice is husky; I have let you talk too much. You hold your cure; I will leave you. But stay—when I hear that health is yours, I will not, like some I know, vainly make boasts; but, giving glory where all glory is due, say, with the devout herb-doctor, Japus in Virgil, when, in the unseen but efficacious presence of Venus, he with simples healed the wound of Æneas:—
‘This is no mortal work, no cure of mine,
Nor art’s effect, but done by power divine.’”