I should have the pharmacy respond to it.  It is the place where we naturally look in an emergency—­the spot to which the victim of an accident is carried directly—­the one where the lady bends her steps when she feels that she is going to faint.  In hundreds of cases the drug store is our only standby, and it should be the druggist’s business to see that it never fails us.  There are pharmacies where a telephone message brings an unfailing response; there are others to which one would as soon think of sending an inquiry regarding a Biblical quotation.  To which type, do you think, will the public prefer to resort?

Then there are those little courtesies that no retail business is obliged to offer, but that the public has been accustomed to expect from the druggist—­the cashing of checks, the changing of bills, the furnishing of postage stamps, the consultation of the city directory.  There can be no reason for resorting to a drug store for all these favors except that the pharmacist has an enviable reputation as the man who is most likely to grant them.  And yet I begin to hear druggists complaining of the results of this reputation, of which they ought to be proud; I see them pointing out that there is no profit on postage stamps and no commission for changing a bill.  They intimate, further, that although it may be proper for them to put themselves out for regular customers, it is absurd for strangers to ask for these courtesies.  I marvel when I hear these sentiments.  If this popular impression regarding the courtesy of the druggist did not exist, it would be worth the expenditure of vast sums and the labor of a lifetime to create it.  To deliberately undo it would be as foolish as to lock the door in the face of customers.

I do not believe that in St. Louis the pharmaceutical profession is generally averse to a reputation for generous public service, and I base my belief on some degree of personal knowledge.  The St. Louis Public Library operates about sixty delivery stations in various parts of the city.  These stations are all in drug stores.  The work connected with them, though light, is by no means inconsiderable, and yet not one of the druggists who undertake it charges the library a cent for his space or his services.  Doubtless they expect a return from the increased attractiveness of their places to the public.  I hope that they get it and I believe that they do.  At any rate we have evidence here of the pharmacist’s belief that the bread of public service, cast upon the waters, will sooner or later return.

You will notice that I am saying nothing about advertising.  One would think from the pharmaceutical papers, with which I am not unfamiliar, that the druggist’s chief end was to have a sensational show window of some kind.  These things are not unimportant, but I do not dwell on them because I believe that if a druggist realizes the importance of his profession; if he makes himself a recognized expert in it; if he sticks to it and magnifies it; if he makes his place indispensable to the community around him, the first point to which the citizens resort for help in an emergency, an unfailing center of courtesy and favor—­he may fill his window with toilet soap, or monkeys, or with nothing at all—­there will still be a trodden path up to his door.