Mr. Kalisch treated the girls in exactly the same way, and they took their pills without a murmur. One of the tiny brown spheres fell on the bed and Billie took it and touched it with the tip of her tongue.
“I wonder if it will put me to sleep?” she thought.
She tasted it again, then calmly chewed it up and swallowed it. But she felt no inclination to sleep as the others had done.
After administering a brown pill to Nancy, who responded to treatment almost before it was given and fell asleep like a baby immediately, Mr. Kalisch took his departure. Billie tiptoed to the door after him.
“Were the pills made of brown bread?” she asked, smiling.
“How did you find it out?” he demanded, the humorous look deepening in his eyes.
“I chewed one of them up.”
The doctor gave her a delightful smile.
“Never tell them,” he said. “Let it be a little secret between you and me. Not even Feargus O’Connor knows that he was cured by a ‘suggestion pellet.’ For some reason it always makes people mad to know that they have been taking bread instead of medicine.”
“But it was something else, wasn’t it, really?”