Only it must be genuine, and it must be old; such as Iden brewed.

The Idens had been famous for ale for generations.

By degrees Alere's hand grew less shaky; the gla.s.s ceased to c.h.i.n.k against his teeth; the strong, good ale was setting his Fleet Street liver in order.

You have "liver," you have "dyspepsia," you have "kidneys," you have "abdominal glands," and the doctor tells you you must take bitters, _i.e._, qua.s.sia, buchu, gentian, cascarilla, calumba; aperients and diluents, podophyllin, taraxac.u.m, salts; physic for the nerves and blood, quinine, iron, phosphorus; this is but the briefest outline of your draughts and preparations; add to it for various purposes, liquor a.r.s.enicalis, bromide of pota.s.sium, strychnia, belladonna.

Weary and disappointed, you turn to patent medicines--American and French patent physic is very popular now--and find the same things precisely under taking t.i.tles, enormously advertised.

It is a fact that nine out of ten of the medicines compounded are intended to produce exactly the same effects as are caused by a few gla.s.ses of good old ale. The objects are to set the great glands in motion, to regulate the stomach, brace the nerves, and act as a tonic and cordial; a little ether put in to aid the digestion of the compound. This is precisely what good old ale does, and digests itself very comfortably. Above all things, it contains the volatile principle, which the prescriptions have not got.

Many of the compounds actually are beer, bittered with qua.s.sia instead of hops; made nauseous in order that you may have faith in them.

"Throw physic to the dogs," get a cask of the true Goliath, and "_drenk un down to the therd hoop_."

Long before Alere had got to the first hoop the rats ceased to run up the wall, his hand became less shaky, he began to play a very good knife and fork at the bacon and Iden's splendid potatoes; by-and-by he began to hum old German songs.

But you may ask, how do _you_ know, you're not a doctor, you're a mere story-spinner, you're no authority? I reply that I am in a position to know much more than a doctor.

How can that be?

Because I have been a Patient. It is so much easier to be a doctor than a patient. The doctor imagines what his prescriptions are like and what they will do; he imagines, but the Patient _knows_.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

SOME n.o.ble physicians have tried the effect of drugs upon themselves in order to advance their art; for this they have received Gold Medals, and are alluded to as Benefactors of Mankind.

I have tried the effects of forty prescriptions upon My Person. With the various combinations, patent medicines, and so forth, the total would, I verily believe, reach eighty drugs.

Consequently, it is clear I ought to receive eighty gold medals. I am a Benefactor eighty times multiplied; the incarnation of virtue; a sort of Buddha, kiss my knees, ye slaves!

I have a complaisant feeling as I walk about that I have thus done more good than any man living.

I am still very ill.

The curious things an invalid is gravely recommended to try! One day I was sitting in that great cosmopolitan museum, the waiting-room at Charing Cross station, wearily glancing from time to time at the clock, and reckoning how long it would be before I could get home. There is nothing so utterly tiring to the enfeebled as an interview with a London physician. So there I sat, huddled of a heap, quite knocked up, and, I suppose, must have coughed from time to time. By-and-by, a tall gentleman came across the room and sat down beside me. "I hope I don't intrude," said he, in American accents. "I was obliged to come and speak to you--you look bad. I _hate_ to hear anybody cough." He put an emphasis on hate, a long-drawn nasal _haate_, hissing it out with unmeasured ferocity. "I _haate_ to hear anybody cough. Now I should like to tell you how to cure it, if you don't mind."

"By all means--very interesting," I replied.

"I was bad at home, in the States," said he. "I was on my back four years with a cough. I couldn't do anything--couldn't help myself; four years, and I got down to eighty-seven pounds. That's a fact, I weighed eighty-seven pounds."

"Very little," I said, looking him over; he was tall and broad-shouldered, not very thick, a square-set man.

"I tried everything the doctors recommended--it was no use; they had to give me up. At last a man cured me; and how do you think he did it?"

"Can't think--should much like to know."

"Crude petroleum," said the American. "That was it. Crude petroleum! You take it just as it comes from the wells; not refined, mind. Just crude.

Ten drops on a bit of sugar three times a day, before meals. Taste it?

No, not to speak of; you don't mind it after a little while. I had in a ten-gallon keg. I got well. I got up to two hundred and fifty pounds.

That's true. I got too fat, had to check it. But I take the drops still, if I feel out of sorts. Guess I'm strong enough now. Been all over Europe."

I looked at him again; certainly, he did appear strong enough.

"But you Britishers won't try anything, I suppose, from the States, now."

I hastened to a.s.sure him I had no prejudice of that sort--if it would cure me, it might come from anywhere.

"You begin with five drops," he said, solemnly. "Or three, if you like, and work up to ten. It soon gets easy to take. You'll soon pick up. But I doubt if you'll get a keg of the crude oil in this country; you'll have to send over for it. I _haate_ to hear anybody cough"--and so we parted.

He was so much in earnest, that if I had egged him on, I verily believe he would have got the keg for me himself. It seemed laughable at the time; but I don't laugh now. I almost think that good-natured American was right; he certainly meant well.

Crude petroleum! Could anything be more nauseous? But probably it acts as a kind of cod-liver oil. Sometimes I wish I had tried it. Like him, I hate to hear anybody cough! Better take a ten-gallon keg of petroleum.

Alere's crude petroleum was the Goliath ale, and he had hardly begun to approach the first hoop, when, as I tell you, he was heard to hum old German songs; it was the volatile principle.

Songs about the Pope and the Sultan

But yet he's not a happy man, He must obey the Alcoran, He dares not touch one drop of wine, I'm glad the Sultan's lot's not mine.

Songs about the rat that dwelt in the cellar, and fed on b.u.t.ter till he raised a paunch that would have done credit to Luther; songs about a King in Thule and the cup his mistress gave him, a beautiful old song that, none like it--

He saw it fall, he watched it fill, And sink deep, deep into the main; Then sorrow o'er his eyelids fell, He never drank a drop again.

Or his thought slipped back to his school-days, and beating the seat in the summer-house with his hand for time, Alere ran on:--

Horum scorum suntivorum, Harum scarum divo, Tag-rag, merry derry, perriwig, and a hatband, Hic hoc horum genitivo--

To be said in one breath.

Oh, my Ella--my blue bella, A secula seculorum, If I have luck, sir, she's my uxor, O dies Benedictorum!

Or something about:

Sweet cowslips grace, the nominative case, And She's of the feminine gender.

Days of Valpy the Vulture, eating the schoolboy's heart out, Eton Latin grammar, accidence--do _not_ pause, traveller, if you see _his_ tomb!