"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Hal coldly.
But Certina Charley was in an expansive mood. It never occurred to him that the heir of the Certina millions was not in the Certina secrets: that he did not wholly understand the nature of his father"s trade, and view it with the same jovial cynicism that inspired the old quack.
"Who"s to match him?" he challenged argumentatively. "I tell you, they all go to school to him. There ain"t one of our advertising tricks, from Old Lame-Boy down to the money-back guarantee, that the others haven"t crabbed. Take that "People"s Doctor" racket. Schwarzman copied it for his Marovian Mixture. Vollmer ran his "Poor Man"s Physician" copy six months, on Marsh-Weed. "Poor Man"s Doctor"! It"s pretty dear treatment, I tell you."
"Surely not," said Hal.
"Sure _is_ it! What"s a doctor"s fee? Three dollars, probably."
"And Certina is a dollar a bottle. If one bottle cures--"
"Does _what_? Quit your jollying," laughed Certina Charley unsteadily.
"Cures the disease," said Hal, his suspicions beginning to congeal into a cold dread that the revelation which he had been unconfessedly avoiding for weeks past was about to be made.
"If it did, we"d go broke. Do you know how many bottles must be sold to any one patron before the profits begin to come in? Six! Count them, six."
"Nonsense! It can"t cost so much to make as--"
"Make? Of course it don"t. But what does it cost to advertise? You think I"m a little drink-taken, but I ain"t. I"m giving you the straight figures. It costs just the return on six bottles to get Certina into Mr.
E.Z. Mark"s hands, and until he"s paid his seventh dollar for his seventh bottle our profits don"t come in. Advertising is expensive, these days."
"How many bottles does it take to cure?" asked Hal, clinging desperately to the word.
"Nix on the cure thing, "bo. You don"t have to put up any bluff with me.
I"m on the inside, right down to the bottom."
"Very well. Maybe you know more than I do, then," said Hal, with a grim determination, now that matters had gone thus far, to accept this opportunity of knowledge, at whatever cost of disillusionment. "Go ahead. Open up."
"A real cure couldn"t make office-rent," declared the expert with conviction. "What you want in the proprietary game is a jollier.
Certina"s that. The booze does it. You ought to see the farmers in a no-license district lick it up. Three or four bottles will give a guy a pretty strong hunch for it. And after the sixth bottle it"s all velvet to us, except the nine cents for manufacture and delivery."
"But it must be some good or people wouldn"t keep on buying it," pursued Hal desperately.
"You"ve got all the old stuff, haven"t you! The good ol" stock arguments," said Certina Charley, giggling. "The Chief has taught you the lesson all right. Must be studyin" up to go before a legislative committee. Well, here"s the straight of it. Folks keep on buying Certina for the kick there is in it. It"s a bracer. And it"s a repeater, the best repeater in the trade."
"But it must cure lots of them. Look at the testimonials. Surely they"re genuine."
"So"s a rhinestone genuine--as a rhinestone. The testimonials that ain"t bought, or given as a favor, are from rubes who want to see their names in print."
"At least I suppose it isn"t harmful," said Hal desperately.
"No more than any other good ol" booze. It won"t hurt a well man. I used to soak up quite a bit of it myself till my doc gave me an option on dyin" of Bright"s disease or quittin"."
"Bright"s disease!" exclaimed Hal.
"Oh, yes, I know: we cure Bright"s disease, don"t we? Well, if there"s anything worse for old George W. Bright"s favorite ailment than raw alcohol, then my high-priced physizzian don"t know his business."
"Let me get this straight," said Hal with a white face. "Do I understand that Certina--"
"Say, wa.s.sa matter?" broke in Certina Charley, in concern; "you look sick."
"Never mind me. You go on and tell me the truth about this thing."
"I guess I been talkin" too much," muttered Certina Charley, dismayed.
He gulped down the last of his champagne with a tremulous hand. "This"s my second bottle," he explained. "An" brandy in between. Say, I thought you knew all about the business."
"I know enough about it now so that I"ve got to know the rest."
"You--you won"t gimme away to the Chief? I didn"t mean to show up his game. I"m--I"m pretty strong for the old boy, myself."
"I won"t give you away. Go on."
"Whaddye want to know, else?"
"Is there _anything_ that Certina is good for?"
"Sure! Didn"t I tell you? It"s the finest bracer--"
"As a cure?"
"It"s just as good as any other prup-proprietary."
"That isn"t the question. You say it is harmful in Bright"s disease."
"Why, looka here, Mr. Surtaine, you know yourself that booze is poison to any feller with kidney trouble. Rheumatism, too, for that matter. But they get the brace, and they think they"re better, and that helps push the trade, too."
"And that"s where my money came from," said Hal, half to himself.
"It"s all in the trade," cried Certina Charley, summoning his powers to a defense. "There"s lots that"s worse. There"s the cocaine dopes for catarrh; they"ll send a well man straight to h.e.l.l in six months. There"s the baby dopes; and the G-U cures that keep the disease going when right treatment could cure it; and the methylene blue--"
"Stop it! Stop it!" cried Hal. "I"ve heard enough."
Alcohol, the juggler with men"s thoughts, abruptly pressed upon a new center of ideation in Certina Charley"s brain.
"D"you think I like it?" he sniveled, with lachrymose sentimentality.
"I gotta make a living, haven"t I? Here"s you and me, two pretty decent young fellers, having to live on a fake. Well," he added with solacing philosophy, "if we didn"t get it, somebody else would."
"Tell me one thing," said Hal, getting to his feet. "Does my father know all this that you"ve been telling me?"
"Does the Chief _know_ it? _Does_ he? Why, say, my boy, Ol" Doc Surtaine, he _wrote_ the proprietary medicine business!"
Misgivings beset the optimistic soul of Certina Charley as his guest faded from his vision; faded and vanished without so much as a word of excuse or farewell. For once Hal had been forgetful of courtesy. Gazing after him his host addressed the hovering waiter:--
"Say, Bill, I guess I been talkin" too much with my face. Bring"s another of those li"l bo"ls."