Magdalen smiled.  The captain’s face assumed an expression of mock gravity; he looked as if there was a serious side to the question, and as if he meant to put it next.

“It’s no laughing matter to the public, my dear,” he said.  “They can’t get rid of me and my Pill; they must take us.  There is not a single form of appeal in the whole range of human advertisement which I am not making to the unfortunate public at this moment.  Hire the last new novel, there I am, inside the boards of the book.  Send for the last new Song—­the instant you open the leaves, I drop out of it.  Take a cab—­I fly in at the window in red.  Buy a box of tooth-powder at the chemist’s—­I wrap it up for you in blue.  Show yourself at the theater—­I flutter down on you in yellow.  The mere titles of my advertisements are quite irresistible.  Le t me quote a few from last week’s issue.  Proverbial Title:  ‘A Pill in time saves Nine.’  Familiar Title:  ’Excuse me, how is your Stomach?’ Patriotic Title:  ’What are the three characteristics of a true-born Englishman?  His Hearth, his Home, and his Pill.’  Title in the form of a nursery dialogue:  ‘Mamma, I am not well.’  ‘What is the matter, my pet?’ ‘I want a little Pill.’  Title in the form of a Historical Anecdote:  ’New Discovery in the Mine of English History.  When the Princes were smothered in the Tower, their faithful attendant collected all their little possessions left behind them.  Among the touching trifles dear to the poor boys, he found a tiny Box.  It contained the Pill of the Period.  Is it necessary to say how inferior that Pill was to its Successor, which prince and peasant alike may now obtain?’—­Et cetera, et cetera.  The place in which my Pill is made is an advertisement in itself.  I have got one of the largest shops in London.  Behind one counter (visible to the public through the lucid medium of plate-glass) are four-and-twenty young men, in white aprons, making the Pill.  Behind another counter are four-and-twenty young men, in white cravats, making the boxes.  At the bottom of the shop are three elderly accountants, posting the vast financial transactions accruing from the Pill in three enormous ledgers.  Over the door are my name, portrait, and autograph, expanded to colossal proportions, and surrounded in flowing letters, by the motto of the establishment, ‘Down with the Doctors!’ Even Mrs. Wragge contributes her quota to this prodigious enterprise.  She is the celebrated woman whom I have cured of indescribable agonies from every complaint under the sun.  Her portrait is engraved on all the wrappers, with the following inscription beneath it:  ’Before she took the Pill you might have blown this patient away with a feather.  Look at her now!!!’ Last, not least, my dear girl, the Pill is the cause of my finding my way to this house.  My department in the prodigious Enterprise already mentioned is to scour the United Kingdom in a gig, establishing Agencies everywhere.  While founding one of those Agencies, I heard of a certain