“You’ll have to ring for a boy yourself,” said he.
When the boy came Wallingford ordered a highball.
“And what’s yours, sir?” asked the boy, turning to the doctor.
“Lithia, you bullet-headed nigger!” roared the doctor with a twinge of pain in his leg. “That’s twice to-day I’ve had to tell you I can’t drink anything but lithia. Get out!”
The boy “got,” grinning.
“Seriously, though, old man,” said Wallingford, judging that the doctor had been aggravated long enough, “your condition must be very bad for business, and I’ve come to make you a proposition to go into the manufacture of the Peerless on a large scale.”
The doctor sat in silence for a moment, shaking his head despondently.
“You can’t get spielers,” he declared. “I’ve tried it. Once I made up a lot of the Sciatacata and sent out three men; picked the best I could find that had made good with street-corner pitches in other lines, and their sales weren’t half what mine would be; moreover, they got drunk on the job, didn’t pay for their goods, and were a nuisance any way you took ’em.”
Wallingford laughed.