The Confidence-Man Chapters 15 and 16

In which a wretched old miser, languishing in dim and humble quarters, is painstakingly coaxed into entrusting a stranger with a sum of money under the promise of treble gains, his fragile confidence wavering like the swaying bunks around him. In the dawning light upon the river, a sick man, wearied by past disappointments and skeptical of modern remedies, is gently urged by a humble herb-doctor to embrace hope through trust in nature’s simple cures, though the path to faith proves a difficult pilgrimage of the soul.