ear the heat of the day, the good man arrived at the
drugstore, the last and only unvisited division of trade, he made his
appearance equipped with half a hundred packages, which nestled in his
arms and bulged out about the sections of his clothing that boasted of
pockets. As he deposited his deck-load upon the counter, great drops
of perspiration rolled down his face and over his waterlogged collar
to the floor.

There was something exquisitely refreshing in the great glasses of
foaming soda that a spruce young man was drawing from a marble
fountain, above which half a dozen polar bears in an ambitious print
were disporting themselves. There came a break in the run of
customers, and the spruce young man, having swept the foam from the
marble, dexterously lifted a glass from the revolving rack which had
rinsed it with a fierce little stream of water, and asked
mechanically, as he caught the intense look of the perspiring elder,
"What syrup, sir?"

Now it had not occurred to the elder to drink soda, but the
suggestion, coming as it did in his exhausted state, was overpowering.
He drew near awkwardly, put on his glasses, and examined the list of
syrups with great care. The young man, being for the moment at
leisure, surveyed critically the gaunt figure, the faded bandanna, the
antique clawhammer coat, and the battered stove-pipe hat, with a
gradually relaxing countenance. He even called the prescription
clerk's attention by a cough and a quick jerk of the thumb. The
prescription clerk smiled freely, and continued his assaults upon a
piece of blue mass.

"I reckon," said the elder, resting his hands upon his knees and
bending down to the list, "you may gimme sassprilla an' a little
strawberry. Sassprilla's good for the blood this time er year, an'
strawberry's good any time."

The spruce young man let the syrup stream into the glass as he smiled
affably. Thinking, perhaps, to draw out the odd character, he ventured
upon a jest himself, repeating a pun invented by the man who made the
first soda fountain. With a sweep of his arm he cleared away the swarm
of insects as he remarked, "People who like a fly in theirs are easily
accommodated."

It was from sheer good-nature only that Elder Brown replied, with his
usual broad, social smile, "Well, a fly now an' then don't hurt
nobody."

Now if there is anybody in the world who prides himself on knowing a
thing or two, it is the spruce young man who presides over a soda