Without waiting for further comment from the patient, whose face was a picture, he hastened to the kitchen, choking as he went.  Mr. Stover met him at the outer door.

“Now you’ve done it!” wailed the little man.  “Now you’ve done it!  Didn’t I tell you?  Oh, this’ll be a hell of a picnic!”

He stalked away, righteous indignation overcoming him.  Brown sat down in a rocking chair and shook with emotion.  From the direction of the sick room came the sounds of three voices, each trying to outscream the other.  The substitute assistant listened to this for a while, and, as he did so, a new thought struck him.  He remembered a story he had read in a magazine years before.  He crossed to the pantry, found an empty bottle, rinsed it at the sink, stepped again to the pantry, and, entering it, closed the door behind him.  There he busied himself with the molasses jug, the soft-soap bucket, the oil can, the pepper shaker, and a few other utensils and their contents.  Footsteps in the kitchen caused him to hurriedly reenter that apartment.  Mrs. Stover was standing by the range, her face red.

“Oh, there you are, Mr. Brown!” she exclaimed.  “I wondered where you’d gone to.”

“How is he?” inquired Brown, the keenest anxiety in his utterance.

“H’m! he’d do well enough if he had the right treatment.  I cal’late he’s better now, even as ’tis; but, when a person has to lay and hear over and over again that what ails ’em is nothin’ but imagination, it ain’t to be wondered at that they get mad.  What he needs is some sort of soothin’ medicine, and I only wish ’twan’t so fur over to home.  I’ve got just what he needs there.”

“I was thinking—­” began Brown.

“What was you thinkin’?”

“I was wondering if some of my ‘Stomach Balm’ wouldn’t help him.  It’s an old family receipt, handed down from the Indians, I believe.  I always have a bottle with me and . . .  Still, I wouldn’t prescribe, not knowing the disease.”

Mrs. Stover’s eyes sparkled.  Patent medicines were her hobby.

“Hum!” she said. “‘Stomach Balm’ sounds good.  And he says his trouble is principally stomach.  Some of them Indian medicines are mighty powerful.  Have you—­did you say you had a bottle with you, Mr. Brown?”

The young man went again to the pantry and returned with the bottle he had so recently found there.  Now, however, it was two thirds full of a black sticky mixture.  Mrs. Stover removed the cork and took an investigating sniff.

“It smells powerful,” she said, hopefully.

“It is.  Would you like to taste it?” handing her a tablespoon.  He watched as she swallowed a spoonful.

“Ugh! oh!” she gasped; even her long suffering palate rebelled at that taste.  “It—­I should think that ought to help him.”

“I should think so.  It may be the very thing he needs.  At any rate, it can’t hurt him.  It’s quite harmless.”