The fat man placed a hand on his broad shirt-front, rolled up his eyes, and solemnly shook his head.
"Fools, fools!" he said, as if speaking to himself. "But what does it matter to me if they won't be saved--if they'd rather die of their complaints? In the East it's different, because I'm known there. I've been to Constantinople, and Morocco, and everywhere. Let them ask the heathen what I have done for them. Do they think I cure them for the sake of their dirty pence? No, no; those that like gold, and jewels, and elephants to ride on, can have it all in the East, and I came away from there. Because why? I care more for these. _I_ don't ask them what's the matter with them! Is there such a thing as a leper in this crowd? Let them bring me a leper here, and I'll cure him for nothing, just to show them what this medicine is. As for rheumatics, consumption, toothache, palpitations of the 'art--what you like, that's all nothing. One drop and it's gone. Sarsaparilla, and waters this, and pills that, what they give their pence for, and expect it's going to do them good. Rubbish, I call it. They buy it, as much as they can put in their insides, and die just the same. This is different. Twenty years in the East, and this is what I got. Doctors! I laugh at such people."
Here, with a superior smile, he cast down his eyes again and relapsed into silence.
No one laughed. Then Fan heard someone near her remark: "He has book-learning, that's what he has"; to which another voice replied, "Ah, you may say it, and he has more'n that."
Next to Fan stood a gaunt, aged woman, miserably dressed, and she, too, listened to these remarks; and presently she pushed her way to the wise man of the East, and began, "Oh, sir, my heart's that bad--"
"Hush, hush! don't say another word," he interrupted with a majestic wave of his hand. "You needn't tell me what you have. I saw it all before you spoke."
He uncorked the phial. "One drop on your tongue will make you whole for ever. Poor woman! poor woman! how much you have suffered. I know it all. Sixpence first, if you please. If you were rich I would say a hundred pounds; but you are poor, and your sixpence shall be more to you in the Day of Judgment than the hundred pounds of the rich man."