Septimus Part 30

"You needn't worry about them, sir, when you've got the army contracts,"

said the traveler.

He could not follow the spirituality underlying his chief's remark. Sypher laid down the peach he was peeling and looked pityingly at Dennymede as at one of little faith, one born to the day of small things.

"It will be all the more my duty to do so," said he, "when the instruments are placed in my hands. What, after all, is the healing of a few blistered feet, compared with the scourge of leprosy, eczema, itch, psoriasis, and what not? And, as for the money itself, what is it?"

He preached his sermon. The securing of the world's army contracts was only a means towards the s.h.i.+mmering ideal. It would clear the path of obstacles and leave the Cure free to pursue its universal way as _consolatrix afflictorum_.

The traveler finished his peach, and accepted another which his host hospitably selected for him.

"All the same, sir," said he, "this is the biggest thing you've struck. May I ask how you came to strike it?"

"Like all great schemes, it had humble beginnings," said Sypher, in comfortable postprandial mood, unconsciously flattered by the admiration of his subordinate. "Newton saw an apple drop to the ground: hence the theory of gravitation. The glory of Tyre and Sidon arose from the purple droppings of a little dog's mouth who had been eating sh.e.l.l fish. The great Cunarders came out of the lid of Stephenson's family kettle. A soldier happened to tell me that his mother had applied Sypher's Cure to his blistered heels--and that was the origin of the scheme."

He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs and put one foot over the other. He immediately started back with a cry of pain.

"I was forgetting my own infernal blister," said he. "About a square inch of skin is off and all the flesh round, it is as red as a tomato."

"You'll have to be careful," advised the traveler. "What are you using for it?"

"Using for it? Why, good heavens, man, the Cure! What else?"

He regarded Dennymede as if he were insane,' and Dennymede in his confusion blushed as red as the blistered heel.

They spent the afternoon over the reports and figures which had so greatly depressed the traveler. He left his chief with hopes throbbing in his breast. He had been promised a high position in the new Army Contract Department. As soon as he had gone Sypher rubbed in more of the Cure.

He pa.s.sed a restless night. In the morning he found the ankle considerably swollen. He could scarcely put his foot to the ground. He got into bed again and rang the bell for the valet de chambre. The valet entered. Sypher explained. He had a bad foot and wanted to see a doctor. Did the valet know of a good doctor? The valet not only knew of a good doctor, but an English doctor resident in Geneva who was always summoned to attend English and American visitors at the hotel; furthermore, he was in the hotel at that very moment.

"Ask him if he would kindly step up," said Sypher.

He looked ruefully at his ankle, which was about the size of his calf, wondering why the Cure had not effected its advertised magic. The inflammation, however, clearly required medical advice. In the midst of his ruefulness the doctor, a capable-looking man of five and thirty, entered the room. He examined the heel and ankle with professional scrutiny. Then he raised his head.

"Have you been treating it in any way?"

"Yes," said Sypher, "with the Cure."

"What Cure?"

"Why, Sypher's Cure."

The doctor brought his hand down on the edge of the footboard of the bed, with a gesture of impatience.

"Why on earth do people treat themselves with quack remedies they know nothing about?"

"Quack remedies!" cried Sypher.

"Of course. They're all pestilential, and if I had my way I'd have them stacked in the market place and burned by the common hangman. But the most pestilential of the lot is Sypher's Cure. You ought never to have used it."

Sypher had the sensation of the hotel walls cras.h.i.+ng down upon his head, falling across his throat and weighing upon his chest. For a few instants he suffered a nightmare paralysis. Then he gasped for breath. At last he said very quietly:

"Do you know who I am?"

"I have not the pleasure," said the doctor. "They only gave me your room number."

"I am Clem Sypher, the proprietor of Sypher's Cure."

The two men stared at one another, Sypher in a blue-striped pyjama jacket, supporting himself by one elbow on the bed, the doctor at the foot. The doctor spread out his hands.

"It's the most horrible moment of my life. I am at your mercy. I only gave you my honest opinion, the result of my experience. If I had known your name--naturally--"

"You had better go," said Sypher in a queer voice, digging the nails into the palms of his hands. "Your fee--?"

"There is no question of it. I am only grieved to the heart at having wounded you. Good morning."

The door closed behind him, and Sypher gave himself up to his furious indignation.

This soothed the soul but further inflamed the ankle. He called up the manager of the hotel and sent for the leading medical man in Geneva. When he arrived he took care to acquaint him with his name and quality. Dr.

Bourdillot, professor of dermatology in the University of Geneva, made his examination, and shook a tactful head. With all consideration for the many admirable virtues of _la cure Sypher_, yet there were certain maladies of the skin for which he personally would not prescribe it. For this, for that--he rattled off half a dozen of learned diseases--it might very well be efficacious. Its effect would probably be benign in a case of elephantiasis. But in a case of abrasion of the cuticle, where there was a large surface of raw flesh laid bare, perhaps a simpler treatment might be more desirable.

His tone was exquisite, and he chose his language so that not a word could wound. Sypher listened to him with a sinking heart.

"In your opinion then, doctor," said he, "it isn't a good thing for blistered heels?"

"You ask for my opinion," replied the professor of dermatology at the University of Geneva. "I give it you. No."

Sypher threw out a hand, desperately argumentative.

"But I know of a case in which it has proved efficacious. A Zouave of my acquaintance--"

Dr. Bourdillot smiled. "A Zouave? Just as nothing is sacred to a sapper, so is nothing hurtful to a Zouave. They have hides like hippopotamuses, those fellows. You could dip them in vitriol and they wouldn't feel it."

"So his heels recovered in spite of the Cure?" said Sypher, grimly.

"Evidently," said Dr. Bourdillot.

Sypher sat in his room for a couple of days, his leg on a chair, and looked at Mont Blanc, exquisite in its fairy splendor against the far, pale sky.

It brought him no consolation. On the contrary it reminded him of Hannibal and other conquerors leading their footsore armies over the Alps. When he allowed a despondent fancy to wander uncontrolled, he saw great mult.i.tudes of men staggering shoeless along with feet and ankles inflamed to the color of tomatoes. Then he pulled himself together and set his teeth. Dennymede came to visit him and heard with dismay the verdict of science, which crushed his hope of a high position in the new Army Contract Department.

But Sypher rea.s.sured him as to his material welfare by increasing his commission on foreign sales; whereupon he began to take a practical view of the situation.

"We can't expect a patent medicine, sir, to do everything."

"I quite agree with you," said Sypher. "It can't make two legs grow where one grew before, but it ought to cure blisters on the heel. Apparently it won't. So we are where we were before I met Monsieur Hegisippe Cruchot. The only thing is that we mustn't now lead people to suppose that it's good for blisters."

"They must take their chance," said Dennymede. He was a sharp, black-haired young man, with a worried brow and a bilious complexion. The soothing of the human race with Sypher's Balm of Gilead mattered nothing to him. His atrabiliar temperament rendered his att.i.tude towards humanity rather misanthropic than otherwise. "Indeed," he continued, "I don't see why you shouldn't try for the army contracts without referring specifically to sore feet."