“Not that sell on their own merits. Advertising and more advertising and still more advertising is all that does it. Let any one of them drop out of the newspapers and off the bill-boards, and the demand for it would be dead in a year.”
“Yet, as a student of business conditions,” said Mr. Clyde, “I’m inclined to side with Mrs. Sharpless and believe that any line of goods which has come down from yesterday to to-day must have some merit.”
The druggist took off his glasses, wiped them and waved them in the air, with a flourish.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death,
he quoted sonorously. “We think ourselves heirs to the wisdom of the ages, without stopping to consider that we’re heirs to the foolishness, also. We’re gulled by the printed lie about Doan’s Kidney Pills, just as our fathers were by the cart-tail oratory of the itinerant quack who sold the ‘Wonderful Indian Secrets of Life’ at one dollar per bottle.”
“Well, I hesitate to admit it,” said Mrs. Clyde, with a little laugh, “but we always have a few of the old remedies about.”
“Suppose you name some of them over,” suggested the druggist.
“Usually I keep some One-Night Cough Cure in the house. That’s harmless, isn’t it?”
The druggist glanced at Dr. Strong, and they both grinned.
“It might be harmless,” said the druggist mildly, “if it didn’t contain both morphine and hasheesh.”