d as it is to-night," said
Ranny's mother. "As for makin' up prescriptions, sufferin' as He is,
He's not fit for it. He's not fit for it, Ranny."

That was as near as she could go.

"Of course he isn't."

(They had to keep it up together.)

But Ranny's mother felt that she had gone too far.

"He ought to be in His bed--"

"Of course he ought," said Ranny, tenderly.

"And He would be if it wasn't for that Mercier."

Thus subtly did she intimate that it was not his father but Mercier
whose behavior was reprehensible.

"P'r'aps you'll go to him, Ranny?"

"Hadn't we better wait for Mercier?"

(Old Mr. Beesley's mixture was a case for Mercier.)

"Him? Goodness knows when he'll be in. And it's not likely that y'r
father'll have him interferin' with him. They're sendin' at ten past
eleven, and it's five past now."

Thus and thus only did she suggest the necessity for immediate action.
Also her fear lest Mercier should find Mr. Ransome out. As if Mercier
had not found him out long ago; as if he hadn't warned Ranny, time and
again, of what might happen.

"All right, I'll go."

* * * * *

He went by the right-hand door at the back of the shop, and down a short
and exceedingly narrow passage, lined with shallow shelves for the
storage of drugs.

Another door at the end of the passage led straight into the
dispensing-room outside, a long shed of corrugated iron run up against
the garden wall and lined with honey-colored pine. Under a wide stretch
of window was a work table. At one end of this table was a slab of
white marble; at the other a porcelain sink fitted with taps and sprays
for hot and cold water. From the far end of the room where the stove was
came a smothered roar of gas flames. On the broken inner wall were
shelves fitted with drawers of all sizes, each with its label, and above
them other shelves with row after row of jars. Near the stove, more
shelves with more and more jars, with phials, kettles, pannikins, and
pipkins. Everywhere else shelves of medicine bottles, innumerable
medicine bottles of all sorts and sizes, giving to the honey-colored
walls a decorative glimmer of sea-blue and sea-green.

All this was brilliantly illuminated with gas that burned on every
bracket.

To Ransome's senses it was as if the faint, the delicate colors of the
place gave a more frightful grossness and pungency to its smell. Dying
asafetida struggled still with gas fumes, and wa