Part 26

he quoted sonorously. “We think ourselves heirs to the wisdom of the ages, without stopping to consider that we’re heirs to the foolishness, also. We’re gulled by the printed lie about Doan’s Kidney Pills, just as our fathers were by the cart-tail oratory of the itinerant quack who sold the ‘Wonderful Indian Secrets of Life’ at one dollar per bottle.”

“Well, I hesitate to admit it,” said Mrs. Clyde, with a little laugh, “but we always have a few of the old remedies about.”

“Suppose you name some of them over,” suggested the druggist.

“Usually I keep some One-Night Cough Cure in the house. That’s harmless, isn’t it?”

The druggist glanced at Dr. Strong, and they both grinned.

“It might be harmless,” said the druggist mildly, “if it didn’t contain both morphine and hasheesh.”

“Goodness!” said Mrs. Clyde, horrified. “How could one suppose—”

“By reading the label carefully,” interjected Dr. Strong. “Anything else?”

“Let me think. I’ve always considered Jayne’s Expectorant good for the children when they have a cold.”

“Tastes differ,” observed the druggist philosophically. “I wouldn’t consider opium good for my children inside or outside of any expectorant. Next!”

“But the names sound so innocent!” cried Mrs. Clyde. “I’m almost afraid to tell any more. But we always have Rexall Cholera Cure on hand.”

“Had much cholera in the house lately?” inquired the druggist, with an affectation of extreme interest.

“Of course it’s only for stomach-ache,” explained Mrs. Clyde. “It certainly does cure the pain.”

“Not cure,—drug it into unconsciousness,” amended Mr. Gormley. “The opium in it does that. Rather a heroic remedy, opium, for a little stomach-ache, don’t you think?”

“What have you got to say against Kohler’s One-Night Cough Cure that I always keep by me?” demanded Grandma Sharpless.

Mr. Gormley beamed on her in deprecatory good nature. “Who? Me? Gracious! I’ve got nothing to say against it worse than it says against itself, on its label. Morphine, chloroform, and hasheesh. What more is there to say?”

“How long has this house been full of assorted poisons?” asked Mr. Clyde suddenly of his wife.

“Now, Tom,” she protested. “I’ve always been careful about using them for the children. Personally, I never touch patent medicines.”

But at this her mother, smarting under their caller’s criticism of her cough syrup, turned on her.

“What do you call those headache tablets you take?”

“Those? They aren’t a patent medicine. They’re Anti-kamnia, a physician’s prescription.”

“Yes; a fine prescription they are!” said the druggist. “Did you ever read the Anti-kamnia booklet? For whole-souled, able-bodied, fore-and-aft, up-and-down stairs professional lying, it has got most of the patent medicines relegated to the infant class. Harmless, they say! I’ve seen a woman take two of those things and hardly get out of the door before they got in their fine work on her heart and over she went like a shot rabbit.”

“Not dead!”

“No; but it was touch and go with her.”

“What’s in that; opium, too?” asked Mr. Clyde.

“No; a coal-tar chemical which puts a clamp on the heart action. One or another of the coal-tar drugs is in all the headache powders. There’s a long list of deaths from them, not to mention cases of drug-habit.”

“Habit?” cried Mrs. Clyde. “Do you mean I’m in danger of not being able to get along without the tablets?”

“If you take them steadily you certainly are. If you take them occasionally, you’re only in danger of dropping dead one of these days.”