The Argosy, January 1907 — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

WHEN SUSPICION STRUCK HARD. form this hungry public that I’m about _ to expose—what?”’ : “Tm sure I don’t know.” “YT do—the Drug .Trust!” Robert snapped his fingers triumphantly and dropped back into his chair with a crash. “Go ahead, my boy. Start right in! Tell me all the hideous horrors you can think of about the Drug Trust! Tell me about pills made out of pigs’ ears, and elixirs that don’t elix, and extracts that are dyed with seventeen varieties of poisonous ingredients—all that sort of thing! Begin! Let the war on the horrible, writhing, criminal Drug Trust be opened this instant! ”’ ROL. ‘“Not at all. Who is the chief crim- inal—the man at the head? How many years has he served in prisons? How many times will he have to be executed if conyicted of the charges we are about to make? ”’ ‘“T’m sure I don’t know,” the druggist replied wearily. “I’m not aware that there is a Drug Trust.” “ What?” Robert’s face contracted incredulously. “Do you mean to say that where there is a Peanut Trust and a Shoe-string Trust, a Fly-paper ‘Trust, and a Chewing-gum Trust, there is no Drug Trust? Fudge! You're conceal- ing the fiends yourself! Talk up! Who are the great big scoundrels? ”’ ‘TI don’t know, I tell you. I’m ne’ sure that any of them are—the gocu houses, I mean. Of course, some of them are whoppers for size, and prob- ably they have their own quiet little agreements for keeping up prices to a point where they make a profit. But if there’s a criminal combine you'll have to journey around the country and dis- cover it for yourself. I’m not ac- quainted with it.” “Ha! So he still refuses to divulge the worst! Bert, I believe that you are in the thing yourself ! You, born of honest and respectable parents % ‘“Oh, dry up!” The druggist reached for a cigar and tossed one to his brother. ‘This whole muck-rake business makes me distinctly weary, Bob. There may have been something in it at first—there is in most things that get a good start. But it’s ,been overdone now, till there isn’t a cobbler-shop in the country that * 231 may not be investigated by some fool committee.” ‘“ But this grasping Drug Trust “All I can tell you about drugs, my dear boy, is that I buy the best I can get from houses that are reliable and have been so for fifty years before muck- raking came into fashion. I get pure goods, pay a fair price for them—and that’s the beginning and the end. Busi- ness isn’t all rotten.” ‘‘ Say, do -you ever read the papers?” the- editor inquired. ‘“ Of course it is! There isn’t a trade, profession, art, craft, business, or form of manual labor that ism’t corrupt from the foundation— that is, if I am judging correctly from the prints. ‘Therefore, this Drug Trust———” The druggist yawned. ‘““ My dear Bob,” he said, “if I knew that every drug manufacturer belonged in jail—that every drug was deadly poison in any quantity—well, I swear, I’d keep my mouth shut, if it was only to spare a long-suffering public!” “ And this is to be the end of a cam- paign which I had hoped would save thousands of innocent lives—and put thousands of dollars in my pocket?” Robert inquired ironically as he lighted his own Cigar. “So far as I’m concerned, it is,’ druggist laughed. “Then on your head Bang! Robert’s words were drowned in a crash that seemed to shake the entire store, From somewhere without, blue flashes and white flashes and yellow flashes seemed to be springing. There was a firecracker crackling—it swelled to a series of musket-reports. People were suddenly shouting in the street. The din increased! Robert and his. brother leaped to their feet with a single impulse. “What the ‘“ Trolley-wire’s down again, I guess,” the druggist responded, as he tried the rear door hurriedly. His brother was already hurrying streetward. ‘Sure enough!” he cried. ‘ Racket —fireworks—people jumping all - over one another! Hooray!” ’ the Gomichoo COLin