“My name,” said I, glibly, “is Edward Pinkhammer. I am a druggist, and my home is in Cornopolis, Kansas.”
“I knew you were a druggist,” said my fellow traveler, affably. “I saw the callous spot on your right forefinger where the handle of the pestle rubs. Of course, you are a delegate to our National Convention.”
“Are all these men druggists?” I asked, wonderingly.
“They are. This car came through from the West. And they’re your old-time druggists, too—none of your patent tablet-and-granule pharmashootists that use slot machines instead of a prescription desk. We percolate our own paregoric and roll our own pills, and we ain’t above handling a few garden seeds in the spring, and carrying a side line of confectionery and shoes. I tell you Hampinker, I’ve got an idea to spring on this convention—new ideas is what they want. Now, you know the shelf bottles of tartar emetic and Rochelle salt Ant. et Pot. Tart. and Sod. et Pot. Tart.—one’s poison, you know, and the other’s harmless. It’s easy to mistake one label for the other. Where do druggists mostly keep ’em? Why, as far apart as possible, on different shelves. That’s wrong. I say keep ’em side by side, so when you want one you can always compare it with the other and avoid mistakes. Do you catch the idea?”
“It seems to me a very good one,” I said.
“All right! When I spring it on the convention you
