"The new patent medicine--the coming boom. You must know that my friend Francis Hughes has a wonderful old nurse, and this wonderful old nurse has the most wonderful medicine, which she used to administer to all her charges. Hughes has obtained the receipt from her."
"How much did he give her for it? Half-a-crown?"
I crushed Pybus.
"That is a private matter, but rather more than half-a-crown."
As a plain statement of fact he hadn't given her anything as yet. But, of course, we should both of us see that she made a good thing of it when the sale got up.
"I need scarcely observe what fortunes have been made in patent medicines."
"And lost in them, my boy."
This was just like Pybus--but I let it pass.
"Millions, literally millions, have been made, and, I may safely say, that none of them can compare with 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.'"
"Have you tried the stuff upon yourself?"