"Surely, Mrs. Dinkel, I will listen to anything you may have to say. But don't stand there while you talk. Go back to your chair."
"Thank you, sir," she said, as she resumed her seat. "I will try not to tire you, although what I wish to say may at the beginning seem a bit tedious. You may or may not be aware, sir, that I have a son, Cornelius by name, who is now turned thirty years of age. When he was quite a boy--and a clever boy he was, though 'tis I who say it--the late Sir Willoughby Freke took a great fancy to him. In the course of time he went to London, at Sir Willoughby's expense, for he was bent on studying to become a doctor. And study he did to such good purpose that he passed all his examinations with flying colors. Hardly, however, had he obtained his diploma before a very good offer was made him to go out to Java, where he has relations on his father's side engaged in business. It was an offer he felt bound to accept. That was ten years ago, and now he has come back to England and is not going abroad any more. His home will be in London, but before settling down there he has come to spend a little time with his old mother, from whom he has been so long parted. And now, sir, I come to the reason why I have taken on myself to trouble you with all these dry particulars.
"My son has brought a wonderful discovery back with him from the East. According to his account, it will cure certain diseases after all other medicines have been tried in vain, and, in some cases, will almost bring dead people back to life. What the drug consists of I cannot tell you, because that is my son's secret, and one which he would not think of opening his lips about even to me. All I know is that the chief ingredient is the powdered bark of a certain tree, of which he has brought a considerable supply back with him. Cornelius feels as sure as it is possible for a man to be of anything that he has only to introduce his discovery to the medical world of London to find himself on the high road to a big fortune. His heart is buoyed up not merely by hope but by certainty.
"Well, sir, no longer ago than last Sunday afternoon, when you and Miss Baynard were good enough to spare me from my duties for a few hours, I had a long talk with my son, and took the liberty of telling him about your illness. And what do you think he said, sir? Why this: 'If Mr. Cortelyon could only be persuaded into trying my drug, I feel sure that it would give him a new lease of life.' Those were his very words, sir--'a new lease of life.'"
The Squire lay silent for a little while. Then he said, "And it is your opinion that I ought to allow myself to be experimented upon by this vaunted remedy of your son?"
"Most emphatically it is, sir. Cornelius is no idle boaster; he always knows what he is talking about, and he would not have said what he did without good reason. He tried the drug again and again in several desperate cases before he left Batavia, and in no instance was it a failure."
"But I am an old man, Mrs. Dinkel, and my case is not one of any particular disorder, but a gradual decay of the vital forces, which can have but one end--and that is now close at hand."
"Don't say that, sir, I beg. Who can say what wonder my son's remedy might not effect even in your case, as it has already done in those of others? It is true that neither Dr. Banks nor Dr. Mills seems able to do anything for you, but that is no reason why you should refuse the help now offered you from another source. My son knows your age within a year or two; I described to him all about your illness, and yet for all that, it is his deliberate opinion that he can give you a fresh lease of life."
Again the Squire lay for some time without speaking. "Only one quack the more," he murmured to himself with a touch of his old cynicism. "Well, why not? From the highest to the lowest they're quacks, every mother's son of 'em. As it is, I'm at death's door already, and if the fellow can do me no good, I'll defy him to do me much harm."
Then he said aloud: "D'you know, I'm half inclined to let this son of yours experiment upon me, if only to take some of the brag out of him and prove to him that in such a case as mine his wonder-working stuff is no more effectual than a dose of senna would be."