The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

by O. Henry

　　The Blue Light Drug Store is downtown, between the Bowery and FirstAvenue, where the distance between the two streets is the shortest.The Blue Light does not consider that pharmacy is a thing of bric-a-brac, scent and ice-cream soda. If you ask it for pain-killer itwill not give you a bonbon.The Blue Light scorns the labour-saving arts of modern pharmacy. Itmacerates its opium and percolates its own laudanum and paregoric.To this day pills are made behind its tall prcscription desk--pillsrolled out on its own pill-tile, divided with a spatula, rolled withthe finger and thumb, dusted with calcined magnesia and delivered inlittle round pasteboard pill-boxes. The store is on a corner aboutwhich coveys of ragged-plumed, hilarious children play and becomecandidates for the cough drops and soothing syrups that wait for theminside.Ikey Schoenstein was the night clerk of the Blue Light and the friendof his customers. Thus it is on the East Side, where the heart ofpharmacy is not g1ace. There, as it should be, the druggist is acounsellor, a confessor, an adviser, an able and willing missionaryand mentor whose learning is respected, whose occult wisdom isvenerated and whose medicine is often poured, untasted, into thegutter. Therefore Ikey's corniform, be-spectacled nose and narrow,knowledge-bowed figure was well known in the vicinity of the BlueLight, and his advice and notice were much desired.Ikey roomed and breakfasted at Mrs. Riddle's two squares away. Mrs.Riddle had a daughter named Rosy. The circumlocution has been invain--you must have guessed it--Ikey adored Rosy. She tinctured allhis thoughts; she was the compound extract of all that was chemicallypure and officinal--the dispensatory contained nothing equal to her.But Ikey was timid, and his hopes remained insoluble in the menstruumof his backwardness and fears. Behind his counter he was a superiorbeing, calmly conscious of special knowledge and worth; outside hewas a weak-kneed, purblind, motorman-cursed rambler, with ill-fittingclothes stained with chemicals and smelling of socotrine aloes andvalerianate of ammonia.The fly in Ikey's ointment (thrice welcome, pat trope!) was ChunkMcGowan.Mr. McGowan was also striving to catch the bright smiles tossed aboutby Rosy. But he was no outfielder as Ikey was; he picked them offthe bat. At the same time he was Ikey's friend and customer, andoften dropped in at the Blue Light Drug Store to have a bruisepainted with iodine or get a cut rubber-plastered after a pleasantevening spent along the Bowery.One afternoon McGowan drifted in in his silent, easy way, and sat,comely, smooth-faced, hard, indomitable, good-natured, upon a stool."Ikey," said he, when his friend had fetched his mortar and satopposite, grinding gum benzoin to a powder, "get busy with your ear.It's drugs for me if you've got the line I need."Ikey scanned the countenance of Mr. McGowan for the usual evidencesof conflict, but found none."Take your coat off," he ordered. "I guess already that you havebeen stuck in the ribs with a knife. I have many times told youthose Dagoes would do you up."Mr. McGowan smiled. "Not them," he said. "Not any Dagoes. Butyou've located the diagnosis all right enough--it's under my coat,near the ribs. Say! Ikey--Rosy and me are goin' to run away and getmarried to-night."Ikey's left forefinger was doubled over the edge of the mortar,holding it steady. He gave it a wild rap with the pestle, but feltit not. Meanwhile Mr. McGowan's smile faded to a look of perplexedgloom."That is," he continued, "if she keeps in the notion until the timecomes. We've been layin' pipes for the getaway for two weeks. Oneday she says she will; the same evenin' she says nixy. We've agreedon to-night, and Rosy's stuck to the affirmative this time for twowhole days. But it's five hours yet till the time, and I'm afraidshe'll stand me up when it comes to the scratch.""You said you wanted drugs," remarked Ikey.Mr. McGowan looked ill at ease and harassed--a condition opposed tohis usual line of demeanour. He made a patent-medicine almanac intoa roll and fitted it with unprofitable carefulness about his finger."I wouldn't have this double handicap make a false start to-night fora million," he said. "I've got a little flat up in Harlem all ready,with chrysanthemums on the table and a kettle ready to boil. AndI've engaged a pulpit pounder to be ready at his house for us at9.30. It's got to come off. And if Rosy don't change her mindagain!"--Mr. McGowan ceased, a prey to his doubts."I don't see then yet," said Ikey, shortly, "what makes it that youtalk of drugs, or what I can be doing about it.""Old man Riddle don't like me a little bit," went on the uneasysuitor, bent upon marshalling his arguments. "For a week he hasn'tlet Rosy step outside the door with me. If it wasn't for losin' aboarder they'd have bounced me long ago. I'm makin' $20 a week andshe'll never regret flyin' the coop with Chunk McGowan.""You will excuse me, Chunk," said Ikey. "I must make a prescriptionthat is to be called for soon.""Say," said McGowan, looking up suddenly, "say, Ikey, ain't there adrug of some kind--some kind of powders that'11 make a girl like youbetter if you give 'em to her?"Ikey's lip beneath his nose curled with the scorn of superiorenlightenment; but before he could answer, McGowan continued:"Tim Lacy told me he got some once from a croaker uptown and fed 'emto his girl in soda water. From the very first dose he was ace-highand everybody else looked like thirty cents to her. They was marriedin less than two weeks."Strong and simple was Chunk McGowan. A better reader of men thanIkey was could have seen that his tough frame was strung upon finewires. Like a good general who was about to invade the enemy'sterritory he was seeking to guard every point against possiblefailure."I thought," went on Chunk hopefully, "that if I had one of thempowders to give Rosy when I see her at supper to-night it might braceher up and keep her from reneging on the proposition to skip. Iguess she don't need a mule team to drag her away, but women arebetter at coaching than they are at running bases. If the stuff'llwork just for a couple of hours it'll do the trick.""When is this foolishness of running away to be happening?" askedIkey."Nine o'clock," said Mr. McGowan. "Supper's at seven. At eight Rosygoes to bed with a headache. At nine old Parvenzano lets me throughto his back yard, where there's a board off Riddle's fence, nextdoor. I go under her window and help her down the fire-escape.We've got to make it early on the preacher's account. It's all deadeasy if Rosy don't balk when the flag drops. Can you fix me one ofthem powders, Ikey?"Ikey Schoenstein rubbed his nose slowly."Chunk," said he, "it is of drugs of that nature that pharmaceutistsmust have much carefulness. To you alone of my acquaintance would Iintrust a powder like that. But for you I shall make it, and youshall see how it makes Rosy to think of you."Ikey went behind the prescription desk. There he crushed to a powdertwo soluble tablets, each containing a quarter of a grain of morphia.To them he added a little sugar of milk to increase the bulk, andfolded the mixture neatly in a white paper. Taken by an adult thispowder would insure several hours of heavy slumber without danger tothe sleeper. This he handed to Chunk McGowan, telling him toadminister it in a liquid if possible, and received the hearty thanksof the backyard Lochinvar.The subtlety of Ikey's action becomes apparent upon recital of hissubsequent move. He sent a messenger for Mr. Riddle and disclosedthe plans of Mr. McGowan for eloping with Rosy. Mr. Riddle was astout man, brick-dusty of complexion and sudden in action."Much obliged," he said, briefly, to Ikey. "The lazy Irish loafer!My own room's just above Rosy's. I'll just go up there myself aftersupper and load the shot-gun and wait. If he comes in my back yardhe'll go away in a ambulance instead of a bridal chaise."With Rosy held in the clutches of Morpheus for a many-hours deepslumber, and the bloodthirsty parent waiting, armed and forewarned,Ikey felt that his rival was close, indeed, upon discomfiture.All night in the Blue Light Drug Store he waited at his duties forchance news of the tragedy, but none came.At eight o'clock in the morning the day clerk arrived and Ikeystarted hurriedly for Mrs. Riddle's to learn the outcome. And, lo!as he stepped out of the store who but Chunk McGowan sprang from apassing street car and grasped his hand--Chunk McGowan with avictor's smile and flushed with joy."Pulled it off," said Chunk with Elysium in his grin. "Rosy bit thefire-escape on time to a second, and we was under the wire at theReverend's at 9.3O 1/4. She's up at the flat--she cooked eggs thismornin' in a blue kimono--Lord! how lucky I am! You must pace upsome day, Ikey, and feed with us. I've got a job down near thebridge, and that's where I'm heading for now.""The--the--powder?" stammered Ikey."Oh, that stuff you gave me!" said Chunk, broadening his grin; "well,it was this way. I sat down at the supper table last night atRiddle's, and I looked at Rosy, and I says to myself, 'Chunk, if youget the girl get her on the square--don't try any hocus-pocus with athoroughbred like her.' And I keeps the paper you give me in mypocket. And then my lamps fall on another party present, who, I saysto myself, is failin' in a proper affection toward his comin' son-in-law, so I watches my chance and dumps that powder in old man Riddle'scoffee--see?"

　　Ishq Ki Dava - Indian Adaptations of Old Masterpiece Stories -O. Henry

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