already making his
success as a gold-miner, with a lawyer and a physician for his partners,
and Mr. Kane's inexperienced position was by no means a novel one. A
slight knowledge of Latin as a written language, an American schoolboy's
acquaintance with chemistry and natural philosophy, were deemed
sufficient by his partner, a regular physician, for practical
cooperation in the vending of drugs and putting up of prescriptions. He
knew the difference between acids and alkalies and the peculiar results
which attended their incautious combination. But he was excessively
deliberate, painstaking, and cautious. The legend which adorned the desk
at the counter, "Physicians' prescriptions carefully prepared," was more
than usually true as regarded the adverb. There was no danger of his
poisoning anybody through haste or carelessness, but it was possible
that an urgent "case" might have succumbed to the disease while he was
putting up the remedy. Nor was his caution entirely passive. In those
days the "heroic" practice of medicine was in keeping with the abnormal
development of the country; there were "record" doses of calomel
and quinine, and he had once or twice incurred the fury of local
practitioners by sending back their prescriptions with a modest query.

The far-off clatter of carriage wheels presently arrested his attention;
looking down the street, he could see the lights of a hackney carriage
advancing towards him. They had already flashed upon the open crossing
a block beyond before his vague curiosity changed into an active
instinctive presentiment that they were coming to the shop. He withdrew
to a more becoming and dignified position behind the counter as the
carriage drew up with a jerk before the door.

The driver rolled from his box and opened the carriage door to a woman
whom he assisted, between some hysterical exclamations on her part and
some equally incoherent explanations of his own, into the shop. Kane saw
at a glance that both were under the influence of liquor, and one, the
woman, was disheveled and bleeding about the head. Yet she was elegantly
dressed and evidently en fete, with one or two "tricolor" knots and
ribbons mingled with her finery. Her golden hair, matted and darkened
with blood, had partly escaped from her French bonnet and hung heavily
over her shoulders. The driver, who was supporting her roughly, and with
a familiarity that was part of the incongruous spectacle, was the first
to speak.