Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-09-07

those streets OF lower New YORK that
after dark, whether merited or not,
take on a sinister gloom, while by no
means routine was none the less not without
frequent precedent in the many years of his
Shopkeeping.
He knew the ear-marks SO well. The strange
~ Lit eyes, the smeared pallor, the elaborate
manner of asking for rat poison. In the case
of the girl with the strawberry colored hair
and the pitiful lower lip with tiny mole that
looked like court plaster beauty-spot 1t was
much the same as usual, except that she was
so young. Not over Is, If the druggist was any
judge, and he hattered himself that he was
The thing to do in these cases was not to
interfere; to interfere was to invite desperate
and frightened recoil. There was little shelf
in the store for just such emergency. Neat
little phials of barley water, duly labeled
poison" In this wise, chances were the sub
ject would have time to recover from the
mental alteration and in all probability not
repeat the attempt at self-destruction
That had been the druggists experience
where he had been in a position to follow up
the case but usually they just drifted out of
sight after the fiasco he thrust on them, and
it was left to his intuition, which he trusted,
to gauge the results.
ON one or two occasions the would-be self
annihilators had returned to thank him
>&or the deception. But more usually, at least
according to the druggists conviction they
just drifted sheepishly out of sight.
In any event, it behooved him to regard the
matter that way. 1t assuaged his unease of
mind.
The 16-year-old girl with the strawberry
hair had not returned, but in the odd times
his mind flashed back to her after the event
. the druggist had leaned upon his conviction
+. that failure TO succeed that once had jerked
her to her senses.
i. The druggists life was too involved in the
multitudious affairs Of his little business to let
these matters obSesS him. The exacting hours
of his shop weighed heavily. 1t was at the
period when his attending pharma-
ceutical college and the assistant he had was
all too inadequate.
The druggist had been IA years in his small
old-fashioned shop which the antiquated air
OF q pharmacy still pervaded instead of the
modern electrified atmosphere of the newer
type OF drug store. He took pride in that, and
further prided himself in the fact that when
his only son had finished training he too.
would carry on in the spirit of the chemist
rather than that Of the new-fangled depart
ment store regime which had overtaken the
corner druggist
And even down there on the remote by
street, tidings OF this small shop spread among
physicians to whom the perfectly-filled pre-
scription meant much. Motor cars that seldom
If ever, frequented that part of town swooped
now with frequency into the druggists street.
His shop became a trade mark of quality
OF the modern youth, the son had returned to
mt himself with enthusiasm and valOr for the
cause of medicine in the old shop.
FIGHT years after his graduation from the
State college, he practically carrying
alone the increasing responsibilities of the drug
store. Meanwhile, of course the neighborhood
had changed. becoming in a way even more
remote and even more sinister in its implica-
ton
Various the opportunities that had come and
the offers from doctors to help finance the re-
moVal OF the shop to a more likely part of
town, but the old druggist, half bed-ridden
now was querulous when approached on the
subject, and for one reason or another his son.
20 past, of steady caliber and his fathers pas
sionate pride, did not urge it.
After all, the store was the old gentleman's
life and work 1t was he who had created it
out Of penneS nurtured it, tended it in in
fancy and seen it flourish with the years. The
world might well be said to have beaten q