human
I'm afraid you started before you were quite ready,
gpt
I might have planted a gramophone on to one of the boys and a few bottles of general-purpose specifics among the rest. They are --his eyes twinkled humorously--
human
Then you sell things?
gpt
Anything to anybody. If I haven't got what the buyer wants I promise to bring it next journey, or bewilder him with an oration until he gives me a dollar for something he has no possible use for. That, however, isn't a thing you can do very frequently, which is why some folks in my profession fail disastrously. They can't realize that if you sell a man what he doesn't want too often he's apt to turn out with a club on the next occasion. He paused and sighed whimsically.
human
If I hadn't been troubled with a conscience I could have been running a store by now. That is, it must be added, if I had wanted to.
gpt
You find a conscience handicaps you?
human
I'm afraid it does. For instance, I came across a man with a badly sprained wrist the other day and he offered me two dollars for anything that would cure it. Now it would have been singularly easy to have affixed a different label to my unrivaled peach-bloom cosmetic and have supplied him with a sure-to-heal embrocation. As it was, I got my supper at his place and recommended cold-water bandages. There was another man I cured of a broken leg, and I resisted the temptation to brace him up with hair-restorer.
gpt
What remedy did you use for the broken leg?
human
Splints, said Thorne dryly,
gpt
But isn't that a difficult thing? How did you know how to go about it?
human
Oh, I'd seen it done.
gpt
On the prairie?
human
No, replied Thorne, with a rather curious smile;