He Was Always Hovering Round Inventions Like A
Bee Over A Flower, And Lived In A Dream Of Patents.
He had with
him a patent medicine, for instance, the composition of which he
had bought years ago for five dollars from an American pedlar, and
sold the other day for a hundred pounds (I think it was) to an
English apothecary.
It was called Golden Oil, cured all maladies
without exception; and I am bound to say that I partook of it
myself with good results. It is a character of the man that he was
not only perpetually dosing himself with Golden Oil, but wherever
there was a head aching or a finger cut, there would be Jones with
his bottle.
If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study
character. Many an hour have we two walked upon the deck
dissecting our neighbours in a spirit that was too purely
scientific to be called unkind; whenever a quaint or human trait
slipped out in conversation, you might have seen Jones and me
exchanging glances; and we could hardly go to bed in comfort till
we had exchanged notes and discussed the day's experience. We were
then like a couple of anglers comparing a day's kill. But the fish
we angled for were of a metaphysical species, and we angled as
often as not in one another's baskets. Once, in the midst of a
serious talk, each found there was a scrutinising eye upon himself;
I own I paused in embarrassment at this double detection; but
Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected
laughter, and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair
of us indeed.
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