“By Jove! doctor, you don’t smoke drugstore cigars, I see.”
“N—no,” I said, “I get the best there is in the market,” meanwhile mentally apologizing to my friend K——, the pharmacist who had given me the box from which that very cigar was taken.
“Do you know, doctor, I haven’t enjoyed a smoke for ages. I used to ‘hit the pipe,’ as you now express it, when I was on earth before. But then,” he sighed, “opium was opium in those days.”
“And pray, what is it nowadays?” I asked.
“Soothing syrup, b’gosh! And I don’t like it a little bit, though I’ve swallowed a barrel of it.
“Which reminds me that you doctors don’t know much about colicky babies,” said my visitor.
“N—no—I don’t suppose we do know a great deal about infantile colic—save by its works—drat it!”
“And its music,” said young Smith, chuckling audibly, as a prolonged, painful, quavering wail was wafted in at the window from a house across the street.
“Come, come, my boy, you mustn’t be too hard on us doctors. Besides, that confounded young one over yonder isn’t under my care. If he was it might be different. One of my brethren from Dearborn Avenue has charge of him. He doesn’t seem to be succeeding very well, either, for the little fiend is yelling night and day. He has kept me awake nights for about three weeks. If I shut down the windows, I smother, and if I open them that vicious little animal disturbs my rest—and there you are!”
“Well, why don’t you do something for the poor little chap?”