“One day I put some Castile soap in a drink of drandy, and Pa leaned over the back fence more than an hour, with his finger down his throat.  The man that collects the ashes from the alley asked Pa if he had lost anything, and Pa said he was only ‘sugaring off.’  I don’t know what that is.  When Pa felt better he came in and wanted a little whisky to take the taste out of his mouth, and I gave him some, with about a teaspoonful of pulverized alum in it.  Well, sir, you’d a dide.  Pa’s mouth and throat was so puckered up that he couldn’t talk.  I don’t think that drugman will make anything by firing me out, because I shall turn all the trade that I control to another store.  Why, sir, sometimes there were eight and nine girls in the store all at wonct, on account of my being there.  They came to have me put extracts on their handkerchiefs, and to eat gum drops—­he will lose all that trade now.  My girl that went back on me for the telegraph messenger boy, she came with the rest of the girls, but she found that I could be as ‘hawty as a dook.’  I got even with her, though.  I pretended I wasn’t mad, and when she wanted me to put some perfumery on her handkerchief I said ‘all right,’ and I put on a little geranium and white rose, and then I got some tincture of assafety, and sprinkled it on her dress and cloak when she went out.  That is about the worst smelling stuff that ever was, and I was glad when she went out and met the telegraph boy on the corner.  They went off together; but he came back pretty soon, about the homesickest boy you ever saw, and he told my chum he would never go with that girl again because she smelled like spoiled oysters or sewer gas.  Her folks noticed it, and made her go and wash her feet and soak herself, and her brother told my chum it didn’t do any good, she smelled just like a glue factory, and my chum—­the darn fool—­told her brother that it was me who perfumed her, and he hit me in the eye with a frozen fish, down by the fish store, and that’s what made my eye black; but I know how to cure a black eye.  I have not been in a drug store eight days, and not know how to cure a black eye; and I guess I learned that girl not to go back on a boy ’cause he smelled like a goat.

“Well, what was it about your leaving the wrong medicine at houses?  The policeman in this ward told me you come pretty near killing several people by leaving the wrong medicine.”

“The way of it was this.  There was about a dozen different kinds of medicine to leave at different places, and I was in a hurry to go to the roller skating rink, so I got my chum to help me, and we just took the numbers of the houses, and when we rung the bell we would hand out the first package we come to, and I understand there was a good deal of complaint.  One old maid who ordered powder for her face, her ticket drew some worm lozengers, and she kicked awfully, and a widow who was going to be married, she ordered a celluloid comb and brush, and she got a nursing