Given his job, we felt that there was no one better to speak about the wonders of Headache Relief Tonic than the mysterious and tempestuous Mr. Gray!

Ladies and Gents, it is my pleasure, if we can call it that, to be here to entertain you this evening. Apparently this is what my duties have devolved into and I shall attempt to accept this with as much grace as my dignity will allow. You would think that one such as myself would be used to such humiliations as these by now but it seems as though life in Courtland County is more than willing to provide even more surprises for us all. Such is also the pleasure of being attached to the Fevrier family and all its incredibly tedious, life-threatening dramas. This is the life I lead and it might only be more irritating if I should find myself thrust back into the dreadful, ulcer-inducing service to Master Reginald Kent. Even thinking of such a thing gives me a pain running through my head that would be impossible to fix without a tonic.

For those of you who might be a little slower than others, allow me to inform you of a secret you may have missed out on. That Jamaican Ginger that you are gulping down to drown your sorrows and your headache is little more than a “special” tonic that you might find at one of the greasy establishments outside of town on the trails. Please don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about. If you are that simple, I should inform you that there is a very lucrative market that makes the best of your inability to notice the obvious and it’s entirely likely that you’ve funded someone’s very lavish lifestyle. Of course, this doesn’t account for all of you. I assume that the lot of you rolling your eyes right now might find it dreadfully amusing that I might be lecturing you about such things but rest assured that for as much as your Jake might aide you in certain amusing regards, in terms of headaches I can attest that it does more to assist in their creation than to treat them. Considering how utterly bitter the mix has become, allow me to let you in on another little secret.

Should you find your way down to the Courtland County Apothecary, you will find your way to something that might have a prayer of revitalizing you. Of course I speak of the Headache Relief Tonic. It is a mixture that has worked wonders for many, giving you a bit of a fix up when one has found himself locked in a stubborn battle with his employer as he involves the clod in his ongoing quest for revenge against one of the wealthiest men in all of the county. Of course, you the audience don’t realize the complexities of such an operation but I can assure you that it has caused me many a sleepless night. This automatically sets me up for raging head pains as soon as the noon bell hits. Added to my stresses, I am forced to contend with the dour personality of the man I am attached to the hip of and in light of this, I am loathe to consider exactly how agonizing life would be without this tonic and its relieving properties.

The tonic gets its lifting properties from that ever popular ingredient, radium. Why yes, it is that lovely luminescent substance discovered by the brilliant Marie Curie! Found in everything from your clock radios to your toothpaste, with such a wide variety of uses, clearly this is a sign of not only its versatility but also its safety. Now that I am finished dispensing with this advertising garbage, I can admit that the tonic is something that will be far more useful to you than most things on the market. It tastes like swill if I’m being completely frank but it will drag you on your feet again once you’ve had a chance to experiment a bit too much with that godawful Ginger Jake and leave you feeling far more refreshed than anything else. It is true that it doesn’t work quite as well as the bloody heroin pills but more recently those are becoming a bit more in demand and this has far less unsavory side effects to contend with when taking down the house and family of an arch enemy. Try it for yourself and if you can swallow the substance whole while still mostly sober, I will concede that you are a better man than I am.

Am I finished with this rubbish yet? I’m eager to find out if I’m going to see the end of my bastard employer or if I’m about to go down with him. You can read more about it in the upcoming chapters of Garden of Malice.