Amusement Only

"Well, it's all settled with Hughes."

I addressed myself to Margaret.

"What about?"

"'Aunt Jane's Jalap.'"

Mrs. Chalmers put down her spoon. This was while the soup was on.

"'Aunt Jane's Jalap!' Whatever's that?"

"The new patent medicine-the coming boom. You must know that my friend Francis Hughes has a wonderful old nurse, and this wonderful old nurse has the most wonderful medicine, which she used to administer to all her charges. Hughes has obtained the receipt from her."

"How much did he give her for it? Half-a-crown?"

I crushed Pybus.

"That is a private matter, but rather more than half-a-crown."

As a plain statement of fact he hadn't given her anything as yet. But, of course, we should both of us see that she made a good thing of it when the sale got up.

"I need scarcely observe what fortunes have been made in patent medicines."

"And lost in them, my boy."

This was just like Pybus-but I let it pass.

"Millions, literally millions, have been made, and, I may safely say, that none of them can compare with 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.'"

"Have you tried the stuff upon yourself?"

"No, Pybus, I have not. I am ready at any time to try it upon you. Well, Hughes has supplied the medicine, and I am going to supply part of the capital."

"What part?"

"That is another private matter, Pybus. Sufficient, I trust, to bring the matter before the public eye."

"Don't you think the name is rather a funny one? – 'Aunt Jane's Jalap!'"

This was hard, coming from Margaret.

"My dear Margaret, the name is half the battle. Hughes thinks it's a splendid one."

"But don't you think it makes one think of indigestion?"

"That's exactly what it's meant to do."

"Before, or afterwards?"

This, of course, was Pybus.

"Let those laugh who win. Wait till you see the name blazoned on every dead wall. Then you'll welcome 'Aunt Jane's Jalap' as a friend."

That dinner, I confess, was a little patent mediciney. More than once I rather wished that I had kept the subject out of it. Pybus told some pleasant and characteristic anecdotes about injurious effects of patent medicines. How he had known whole families killed by taking them. How more than half the infant mortality of Great Britain was owing to their unrestricted sale. How the habit of taking patent medicines was worse than the habit of dram drinking, and the why, and the wherefore, and so on. I could not, at my own table, take the man by the scruff of the neck and drop him from the first floor window. But I know that Margaret didn't like it-and I didn't either. Mrs. Chalmers seemed undecided. She herself swears by some noxious compound, which is absurdly named "Daddy's Delight," and which I know, by the mere smell of it, is nothing else but poison.

"Have you any of the stuff in the house?" she asked.

"I have a bottle of 'Aunt Jane's Jalap,' which is not stuff, my dear Mrs. Chalmers, but a most invaluable medicine. Hughes brought it this afternoon as a sample."

"Trot it out," said Pybus.

Pybus is fifty-five, if he is a day, but he uses the slang of a schoolboy. I was not going to act on such a hint as that, but when Mrs. Chalmers expressed a wish to look at it I fetched the bottle. It was a small black bottle, such as is used for "samples" of wines, about quarter-bottle size. I held it in my hand.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.' It is a name which I trust will soon be familiar in your mouths as household words. This, however, is its first appearance on the scene, and I propose, to mark the importance of the occasion, that we drink to its success. I propose, ladies and gentlemen, that we drink to 'Aunt Jane's Jalap' in 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.' Brooks, bring four claret glasses."

I drew the cork.

"George, you don't mean that we're to drink the stuff?"

"I do, my dear Margaret, why not? The dose is a wine-glassful, to be taken immediately after meals. Mrs. Chalmers, allow me to offer you a glass of 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.'"

She sniffed at it.

"It has a very disagreeable smell."

That was good. I protest that I have smelt "Daddy's Delight" when I was passing the house, and took it-till I knew better-for drains.

"Margaret, a glass of 'Aunt Jane's Jalap.'"

"But, George, I assure you that I never do take medicine."

"Some people's wine is no better than medicine. We drink that, and pretend we like it. Why not jalap?"

This was Pybus! As he had just before been making insinuations about my wine, the allusion was pointed. But the man's proverbial.

"No heeltraps-'Aunt Jane's Jalap'-with the honours!"

We all stood up. I drained my glass. I immediately wished I hadn't. The others drained their glasses. I saw they wished they hadn't too. I do not think I ever tasted anything quite so nasty. I wished I had sampled it before. As it was, it took me by surprise, so much by surprise that my first impulse was to fly for shelter. It was like-well, the taste was really so exceedingly disagreeable that comparison fails me.

"It is a case of kill or cure," observed Pybus, with the most extraordinary expression of countenance I ever saw. "The man who takes much of that stuff will be killed if he isn't cured. Death for me, rather than 'Aunt Jane's Jalap'-if it is jalap."

"It is rather pungent," I owned.

"I don't know about pungent," continued Pybus, who certainly seemed to be suffering; "but with ice pudding it's a failure."

"Never," declared Mrs. Chalmers, who was leaning back in her chair, and had her handkerchief in her hand, "never did I taste anything like it! Never! and after dinner, too!"

Margaret's feelings seemed for the moment to be too strong for speech. I perceived the thing had been a failure. Still, I endeavoured to pass it off, which was difficult, for I myself felt really ill.