From a dealer in "fake" goods, Braun cheaply obtained the empty packages, the jars of colored water, and the stacks of imitation "put up" goods, which gave to the pharmacy its air of rosy prosperity. To cater to his natural patrons, cheap perfumes, confectionery, gaudy nostrums, theatrical make-up, and a round of disguised narcotics and "headache" medicines were always at hand.
Braun picked up a waif of the street, an ex-Prussian soldier, who for a pittance and his daily "rum," slaved in the "Pharmacy" like a dog, polishing and cleaning until it was the smartest show place of the neighboring blocks.
But the citadel of the real business was the huge marble soda fountain, with its bewildering array of gaudy silver-plated faucets. Above the rows of bottled "bitters," the fiery drink of the temperance frauds, high over the three score jars of "nervines" and pick-me-up preparations, towered a life-size marble statue of Hygeia, glowing in a voluptuous Parian nakedness.
Behind the fountain counter, with its serried rows of crystal glasses in artistic silver holders, there lurked on watch, now, the factotum, the thieving London-bred drug-clerk who had escaped "transportation," at Her Gracious Majesty's behest, by slipping over to New York City disguised as a stoker.
To him alone was entrusted the traffic in slops and the flimsy produce of the soda fountain, to him the drudgery of the illicit Sunday liquor trade, when the "regulars" entered by the side door from the hall, bearing the portentous sign, "Hugo Adler, M.D., Physician and Surgeon."
No mortal had ever gazed upon the legendary Adler, but Timmins the cockney, and Braunschweiger the ex-Prussian grenadier, gaily dispensed from jugs and bottles the "spiritual comforts" stacked up in the "dark room" every Saturday against the Sunday of legally enforced thirst and resultant sadness.
But while these minor villains slaved for the master who greedily snatched every bill from the till, and held them up to a keen return for every measured drink in the stock of the Sunday "bar" of the mock drug-store, it was the taciturn Fritz Braun himself who murmured in confidence to the important patrons of the den.
The morning run beginning at nine, embraced the haggard-eyed devotees of pleasure—Wall Street men, clerk and financiers, habitues of the Tenderloin—actors and men about town.
In subdued murmurs the skilful Fritz Braun trafficked with these "shaky" mortals, while Timmins covered their "prescriptions" with an innocent layer of Vichy.
Sometimes the favored few entered behind Braun's screen, until the chemist solved their varying problems by manipulating his vials in the closely locked cabinet, the key of which never left his person.