My Uncle Oswald(10)

Pill making is a simple matter if you know how. The calcium carbonate, which is neutral and harmless, comprises the bulk of the pill. You then add the precise quantity by weight of the active ingredient, in my case cantharidin powder. And finally, as an excipient, you put in a little tragacanth. An excipient is simply the cement that makes everything stick together and harden into an attractive pill.

I weighed out sufficient of each substance to make twenty-four fairly large and impressive pills. I added a few drops of cochineal, which is a tasteless scarlet colouring matter. I mixed everything together well and truly in a bowl and fed the mixture into my pill-machine. In a trice, I had before me twenty-four large red pills of perfect shape and hardness. And each one, if I had done my weighing and mixing properly, contained exactly the amount of cantharidin powder that would lie on top of a pinhead. Each one, in other words, was a potent and explosive aphrodisiac.

I was still not ready to make my move.

I went out again into the streets of Paris and found a commercial box maker. From him, I bought one thousand small round cardboard boxes, one inch in diameter. I also bought cotton-wool.

Next, I went to a printer and ordered one thousand tiny round labels. On each label the following legend was to be printed in English:





PROFESSOR YOUSOUPOFF’S



These pills are

singly powerful. Use them sparingly

otherwise you may drive both

yourself and your partner beyond

the point of exhaustion.

Recommended dose one per week



Sole European agent.

Cornelius 192 avenue



POTENCY PILLS





The labels were designed to fit exactly upon the lids of my little cardboard boxes.

Two days later, I collected the labels. I bought a pot of glue. I returned to my room and stuck labels onto twenty-four box lids. Inside each box, I made a nest of white cotton-wool. Upon this I placed a single scarlet pill and closed the lid.

I was ready to go.

As you will have guessed long ago, I was about to enter the commercial world. I was going to sell my Potency Pills to a clientele that would soon be screaming for more and still more. I would sell them individually, one only in each box, and I would charge an exorbitant price.

And the clientele? Where would they come from? How would a seventeen-year-old boy in a foreign city set about finding customers for this wonder pill of his? Well, I had no qualms about that. I had only to find one single person of the right type and let him try one single pill, and the ecstatic recipient would immediately come galloping back for a second helping. He would also whisper the news to his friends, and the glad tidings would spread like a forest fire.

I already knew who my first victim was going to be. I have not yet told you that my father, William Cornelius, was in the diplomatic service. He had no money of his own, but he was a skillful diplomat and he managed to live very comfortably on his pay. His last post had been ambassador to Denmark, and he was presently marking time with some job in the Foreign Office in London before getting a new and more senior appointment. The current British ambassador to France was someone by the name of Sir Charles Makepiece. He was an old friend of my father’s, and before I left England my father had written a letter to Sir Charles asking him to keep an eye on me.

I knew what I had to do now, and I set about doing it straightaway. I put on my best suit of clothes and made my way to the British Embassy. I did not, of course, go in by the chancery entrance. I knocked on the door of the ambassador’s private residence, which was in the same imposing building as the chancery, but at the rear. The time was four in the afternoon. A flunkey in white knee breeches and a scarlet coat with gold buttons opened the door and glared at me. I had no visiting card, but I managed to convey the news that my father and mother were close friends of Sir Charles and Lady Makepiece and would he kindly inform her ladyship that Oswald Cornelius Esquire had come to pay his respects.

I was put into a sort of vestibule where I sat down and waited. Five minutes later, Lady Makepiece swept into the room in a flurry of silk and chiffon. “Well, well!” she cried, taking both my hands in hers. “So you are William’s son! He always had good taste, the old rascal! We got his letter and we’ve been waiting for you to call.”

She was an imposing wench. Not young, of course, but not exactly fossilized either. I put her around forty. She had one of those dazzling ageless faces that seemed to be carved out of marble, and lower down there was a torso that tapered to a waist I could have circled with my two hands. She sized me up with one swift penetrating glance, and she seemed to be satisfied with what she saw because the next thing she said was, “Come in, William’s son, and we shall have a dish of tea together and a chat.”