heap perfumes, confectionery,
gaudy nostrums, theatrical make-up, and a round of disguised
narcotics and "headache" medicines were always at hand.

Braun picked up a waif of the street, an ex-Prussian soldier, who
for a pittance and his daily "rum," slaved in the "Pharmacy" like
a dog, polishing and cleaning until it was the smartest show place
of the neighboring blocks.

But the citadel of the real business was the huge marble soda fountain,
with its bewildering array of gaudy silver-plated faucets. Above
the rows of bottled "bitters," the fiery drink of the temperance
frauds, high over the three score jars of "nervines" and pick-me-up
preparations, towered a life-size marble statue of Hygeia, glowing
in a voluptuous Parian nakedness.

Behind the fountain counter, with its serried rows of crystal
glasses in artistic silver holders, there lurked on watch, now,
the factotum, the thieving London-bred drug-clerk who had escaped
"transportation," at Her Gracious Majesty's behest, by slipping
over to New York City disguised as a stoker.

To him alone was entrusted the traffic in slops and the flimsy
produce of the soda fountain, to him the drudgery of the illicit
Sunday liquor trade, when the "regulars" entered by the side door
from the hall, bearing the portentous sign, "Hugo Adler, M.D.,
Physician and Surgeon."

No mortal had ever gazed upon the legendary Adler, but Timmins
the cockney, and Braunschweiger the ex-Prussian grenadier, gaily
dispensed from jugs and bottles the "spiritual comforts" stacked
up in the "dark room" every Saturday against the Sunday of legally
enforced thirst and resultant sadness.

But while these minor villains slaved for the master who greedily
snatched every bill from the till, and held them up to a keen return
for every measured drink in the stock of the Sunday "bar" of the
mock drug-store, it was the taciturn Fritz Braun himself who murmured
in confidence to the important patrons of the den.

The morning run beginning at nine, embraced the haggard-eyed devotees
of pleasure--Wall Street men, clerk and financiers, habitues of
the Tenderloin--actors and men about town.

In subdued murmurs the skilful Fritz Braun trafficked with these
"shaky" mortals, while Timmins covered their "prescriptions" with
an innocent layer of Vichy.

Sometimes the favored few entered behind Braun's screen, until the
chemist solved their varying problems by manipulating his vials in
the closely locked