A Sick Man, After Some Impatience, is Induced to Become a Patient
- It's morning, and it is glo-ri-ous. The sun is out. It's beaming its beautiful rays on the whole world and everyone in it.
- Everyone except that guy right over there out on the deck, that is. He looks miserable. Worse, he looks like he's on death's door. He may be. He's clearly feeble and ill.
- Worse still, dude's got an herb-doctor next to him touting the value of natural remedies and decrying the false medical arts of chemists.
- Our ill old man has apparently taken some sort of draught containing iron and maybe a whole host of other chemicals that have degenerated his body.
- The herb-doctor goes through various arguments about why those other doctors are snake-oil salesmen but he's the real McCoy. His main point is that he is on the side of nature, nature is on the side of God, and God can do no wrong. Therefore, everything from nature is good. If everything from God-nature is good, then bam, syllogism complete: he, the herb-doctor, is a man to trust.
- Throughout this one-sided conversation, the old man has remained silent, but when trust is mentioned, he balks. He's done with all doctors.
- The herb-doctor is relentless in offering his Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator, so the old man asks what's in it. He doesn't get an answer to that question. Instead, the herb-doctor smart-shames him for having the skepticism of a philosopher. He tells the old man that he needs the faith of the uneducated in order for this to work.
- The herb-doctor plays on the very human desire to keep going in order to convince the old man his herbs will work.
- The herb-doctor repeats that the old man must have complete confidence in the herbs, or they won't work.
- The old man ponies up the cash.
- As he's leaving, the herb-doctor says he may never see the old man again, but he should just trust in the herbs while having no expectations for when he might recover.
- Great.
- The old man freezes because he thinks the herb-doctor meant he'd never see him due to the old man's death. Oops. Foot in mouth.
- The herb-doctor nopes out of that pretty quickly by saying he only meant that the two might not meet again on the ship—or ever.
- Oh. Before he goes, though, the herb-doctor wants the old man to know that if he needs a refill, he should be super wary of counterfeiters. They all want to make money off of the herb-doctor's discovery. Instead, the old man should peel back the label of anything advertised as the Omni-Balsamic Reinvigorator to find a watermark of the word "confidence."
- The old man is dispirited again—he just started to have confidence. Now the herb-doctor is sowing distrust.
- The herb-doctor clarifies: Have confidence in me alone, but above all else, give the credit of my healing you to God.